


You've Got So Much Heart

by ladybugwarrior



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman - Fandom
Genre: Age Reversal, Angst, Bruce Wayne is a Good Dad, Damian Wayne is Nightwing, Damian is Protective, Dick Grayson is a Talon, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is Bluejay, No graphic descriptions of Dick becoming a Talon, Tim Drake is Red Hood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-03-15 16:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 30,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13617087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladybugwarrior/pseuds/ladybugwarrior
Summary: The young new addition to the Wayne family, Dick Grayson, was taken from the Manor by the Court four-years ago. He's been back for two-years and recovering from his time with the Court while the Wayne family attempts to heal the wounds that occurred during his absense.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been looking forward to writing this one for a while. Age-reversal and Talon!Dick AU's are my two favorite fics and I thought I would throw my hat in the ring now that I am old enough to manage my time well enough for a multi-chapter fic. This will be a multi-chapter series that I will attempt to update every two-weeks ( as long as school is destroying my soul.) The ages for everyone are as follows:  
> Dick: 11  
> Jason: 17  
> Tim: 18  
> Damian: 24  
> Bruce: 44

Two years had passed since the Talons came to Wayne Manor for their youngest ward. Dick Grayson--- once a star-eyed acrobat that came to live with them after the death of his parents--- was now almost unrecognizable.  They had only cared for the boy for a year after the Flying Graysons fell from the air. His laughter echoed through the halls of Wayne Manor. None of the Wayne’s--- even young Jason Todd-Wayne who was only eleven at the time--- were a match for the raw enthusiasm embedded within the boy’s soul. The joy within him was intoxicating.

For Bruce Wayne, he saw himself in the boy’s tragedy. He held Dick every night until his heart slowed down from the nightmares that plagued him. His first son, Damian Wayne, was slow to accept the newest addition to the family. Overtime, he became protective of the boy. A bond had formed between them that was unknowable to any of the other members of the family. Tim was much like Dick was back then, hopeful, and he loved the boy like a brother. Jason was wary at first, but it was hard not to fall from Dick’s innocent smile.

The boy was on his way to becoming Robin, like his brothers before him. That was when the Court took him from the most secure home in Gotham. Ripped away from his pseudo family like a scab from an old wound and they all began to bleed from his removal.

After six months Jason gave up the search for Dick. Bruce had yelled, and he yelled right back. That was the night Robin became Bluejay and left for Jump City.

Tim was next to give in, but he never voiced his opinions. Still, everyone knew his hesitance.

Bruce never gave up the search, but, after everything that happened to Tim and the sixteen months without a whisper of his lost son, he lost hope. He still looked at the file every night. Dick’s radiant blue eyes shining down at him, filled with a trust that Bruce felt that he had betrayed. Alfred had often found him asleep in his chair, still in the Bat Suit, with Dick Grayson smiling down at him.

Damian never gave up or lost hope. He left Wayne Manor for the penthouse when his family attempted to reason with him. Hunting down the Court became his only goal, but they had disappeared. They disappeared along with his youngest brother.

They never found Dick Grayson; he found them. His memory was a few torn-out pages covered in white-out and shredded. Faint recollections of gothic architecture, high windows, and large green lawns brought him back to them. No one heard him enter the Manor. He wasn’t even discovered until two days later his arrival when Alfred found him eating cereal on the kitchen counter at four in the morning.

The boy they knew was gone. The Court scooped him out and began to beat him into the shape of a Talon. Bruce found that out when he went to hug him the day of his return and got stabbed with a Talon’s blade. Two years wasn’t enough time to create a true Talon. All that they had time to install was fear hidden behind now gold tinted eyes and an impressive skill set. When he returned, no one could get near the frightened boy armed with intricate knives, the weapons of a Talon.

That was two-years ago.

* * *

 

“Richard, are you up there?” Damian had searched for his brother all day, ever since last nights patrol. He checked Dick’s room at both the Penthouse and the Manor, Bruce’s study, and the roof. Dick hadn’t been in any of those places.

That left the Nest, a small alcove hidden high above the tallest standing structure in the Cave. Every Robin used the space as a safe spot to avoid the Batman when he was being particular. At twenty-three years old, Damian could no longer fit in the nest, neither could the other Robin’s. Dick loved that about the nest. He had a place of solitude for the first time since his kidnapping, and that was precious to him.

“Richard,” Damian yelled from the Cave floor again. “Would you come down?”

A small piece of crumpled paper flew out from the opening of the Nest. Damian caught it from the air with ease and noted the two-word message written in shaky letter: Go away. Dick was non-verbal today, Damian noted, but at least he was able to write.

“You ran off after patrol before I could perform the necessary injury check. Now either you come down, or I will have to come get you.”

Another paper call flew down.  _ Go away,  _ it repeated.

“Richard, I’m coming up.”

The climb up to the Nest was easy, one ingrained in his muscles. Soon, he was sitting on the ledge outside of the small entryway.

“I’m not leaving you,” he spoke low and soft, careful not to sound commanding in any way. “Richard, please come out and tell me what’s wrong. If it is something Todd did, we can punish him together.”

Another ball of paper rolled out.  _ I saw him. _

Damian gritted his teeth but kept animosity out of his tone. “Cobb’s stalking routine has always picked up near the anniversary of your escape. He has never been able to touch you since your escape. You have nothing to fear.” That wasn’t true, but Dick deserved a white lie.

Another note,  _ I don’t want him to hurt you. _

“Don’t worry about me, William Cobb wasn’t the only one trained since birth for battle.”

There was no note, no distant scratch of paper and pen. Damian sighed and pinched his brow. He wasn’t good enough at this, no one in this family was good enough.

“Listen to me, Richard. Cobb can not touch you while you are here, not again. He knows that. You have nothing to fear from him. Everyone under this roof, and the entirety of the League, will ensure your safety until we destroy the Court. Remember that, Richard.”

A silent moment before a new note tumbled out of the opening. Promise?

“Yes, I promise.”

The young boy scrambled out of the Nest and flung himself on his older brother with bone crushing hug Damian met with a light embrace.

“Pennyworth is making dinner, and if I’m correct you have not eaten today.”

Dick held up his pointer finger and thumb with a small space in-between.

“That is not an acceptable amount. I’m sure you will be getting an excessive portion of dinner from Pennyworth tonight.”

His nose scrunched with a sneer. Today would be difficult if Dick were non-verbal and had no appetite, but days like this were more common than Damian cared to dwell on.

“You know that you have to eat, Richard. Like how you know you’re required to let us conduct medical checks after you patrol.”

Dick looked away, shoulder slumped.

“You’re forgiven. I know you will take extra care to prevent a repeat occurrence.”

Frantic nodding made Dick’s head look like it would pop right off. He then crawled on Damian’s back with his arms around his neck and legs tucked under his ribs.

“I’m not your horse.” Damian chided. Though he already knew that he was going to lose this fight.

Dick tapped his heels on Damian’s side and pointed forward. Fighting with the boy was useless. That was one of the few things that had not changed in the boy after the Talons took him.

So, Damian crawled down the Cave wall with a half-trained assassin clinging to his back. When they passed the elevator, Dick tapped his shoulder and pointed in its direction.

“You didn’t think that you would get out of your injury check, did you?” Damian asked with a smirk as Dick’s head fell against his shoulder, defeated. “That’s what I thought.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> talk to me at dontfeedthebabytigers.tumblr.com 
> 
> this fic's spotify playlist https://open.spotify.com/user/12bi2vdo1y7khazxolv5m4en0/playlist/4xqLllv0cdJm4KNjmbka6v?si=uZnm0VqJTnO-VaBKOjn1Qg


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so astounded by the rush of support that came with the first chapter of this fic. I had expected next to nothing and was not ready for the love that came from the people who read this fic. To all of those who commented I tried to reply and answer any questions you had (in case you hadn't seen my responses). Each and every person who commented, bookmarked, subscribed, or kudosed are so lovely and I appreciate you all.
> 
> I also have to say that I was not expecting for the beautiful gift that pentapoda created which was a beautiful piece of art that I will link to at the bottom of this note. I know that I thanked you over tumblr, but I am still blown away that you created something so beautiful for this fic. Thank you.
> 
> https://pentapoda.tumblr.com/post/170704642838/found-a-fic-that-was-both-age-reversal

Damian spent half an hour checking over his brother for any partially healed cuts and untreated concussions. He never expected to find anything, but the routine was necessary. He conceded in letting Dick continue to use him as his own personal horse until they arrived at the den where their father was reading.

Bruce was sat on the couch trying to look like he hadn’t been scouring the manor and its grounds alongside Damian, and instead retained a neutral mask over the relief saved him from drowning when Damian texted him that Dick was alright. He even smiled when Damian bent down and toppled Dick over his shoulders and onto the couch next to him. A laugh might have even escaped him when Damian ducked the pillow that was launched at his head when he took place at the adjacent couch.

“Don’t be childish,” he said as he threw the pillow back.

Dick caught it with ease as he always did.

“He is a child, Damian.” Bruce reminded him without looking up from his book.

“What excuse is that? I never behaved so immaturely.”

“Are you sure about that?” Bruce raised an eyebrow while Dick snorted.

“Who asked you two?”

Dick stuck his tongue out at Damian who mocked his behavior. He then pointed at the book Bruce was reading, tapping the edge to make sure he had his father’s attention.

“I don’t think you’d like it. The plot is darker than you tend to enjoy.” He showed Dick the cover, The Stranger by Albert Camus, and set the book on the side table. Bruce held his arm nearest Dick out. “May I?”

Dick nodded, and Bruce pulled him to lean against his side. Bruce ruffled Dick’s hair and ran his hand up and down his sons arm until Dick relaxed into him. He had been feared that they weren’t going to find Dick and must wait until he came out from whichever nook he had hidden himself away in. Dick needed space sometimes, and Bruce understood that desire. But when his disappearances come so soon after patrol, he couldn’t help but run through the worst-case scenarios. That didn’t matter, not if Dick was safe.

“Are you okay, chum? You’ve been gone all day.” He watched Dick hesitate and shake his head. “Do you want to talk about it?”

As expected, a response for that questions took longer. Dick shook his head, nodded, then shook his head again. He looked up at Brue with those wide eyes, his breathing halted, and hands fidgeted.

“Don’t worry, we don’t have to talk about anything right now.” Bruce predicted an outcome along the one his son had given. From what he had seen, Dick couldn’t, or didn’t want to, verbalize his thoughts today.

Dick did let out the breath he had been holding after Bruce let the subject go, so that was something.

“You weren’t hurt last night, were you?” He looked at Dick, but the question prompted Damian to report.

For what it was worth, Dick shook his head and looked over at Damian to give a more detailed recounting.

“Just a few bruises that were already disappearing.” Damian said. “In a few hours they will have faded. He helped with injury check, didn’t you, Richard?”

Dick nodded and picked at the expensive throw blanket.

“Really? Well, then it sounds like someone deserves to go out tonight.” Reward good behavior, Bruce thought. Enforce good habits and see his eyes light up. “I’ve been thinking it’s time to start brining you out three nights a week. What do you think?”

All the air was knocked out of him as he received one of Dick’s legendary hugs. Bruce knew there were few things Dick loved more than being Robin, and the power the uniform was bestowed with. His limited nights patrolling brought the largest smiles, and, when the night went well, left Dick the most vocal. Had Bruce felt more comfortable with his current Robin’s self-preservation instincts, he could make patrol every night.

“Three nights means no skipping out on injury checks, even on the nights you want to be left alone. Can you do that?”

Dick pulled out of the hug, nodded, and drew an “X” over his heart, and that was all the assurance Bruce needed. There would be slip ups, as there always were, but those could be planned for. Everything could be. For now, he focused on his joyous son who captured him in yet another hug. That was until a curt clearing of a throat brought their attention to Alfred who stood in the doorway.

“Dinner has been prepared.”

“Thank you, Alfred.” Bruce said and stood up. “Will Jason be joining us for dinner?”

“I’m afraid not, sir. Master Jason informed me that he would be having dinner at the Tower and shall arrive in time for your nightly activities.”

Bruce scowled, that was the third night this week Jason neglected to join them for dinner. His absence was becoming more noticeable since he turned sixteen a few months prior. He grunted in acknowledgement.

A tug on his sleeve had him reminded him of Dick’s presence. He looked down to the child who looked up at him with concern that bled through his every feature from the lip he bit, and to his small fingers wrapped in the pricey fabric of Bruce’s pull-over. Bruce cursed himself. Dick was too good at reading him, too observant.

Bruce did an attempt at a smile. “Let’s get some food in you.” He held a hand out to Dick who took it without thought. “Damian, I assume you’ll be joining us.”

“For dinner, yes, but I have long-standing engagements at the Mountain tonight. He came to Dick’s other side, snapped his fingers once before the boy noticed and grabbed his hand.

“And how are things at the Mountain?” Bruce asked while bending his arm in tandem with Damian’s, all so Dick could swing between them.

“Acceptable, thought I’ve noticed their special awareness is less than satisfactory. I was planning on conducting a number of exercises to help improve their abilities.”

Bruce nodded. “Are the medical facilities at the Mountain equipped to handle these exercises?”

Damian smirked, but said nothing on the matter.

When they arrived at the kitchen table--- the one dining room was far too formal--- each of them was greeted with the smell of roasted duck and potatoes. Each plate, even Dick’s smaller one, was filled with vegetables, mashed potatoes and meat to the point of almost falling onto the table.

Dick sat in his chair that had the best sight lines in the room, allowing a full view of the room. With his brother and father at his sides, they ate in silence. They fell into this warm silence as Damian and Bruce, and Dick picked at his meal. The boy was so focused on not eating the meal before him until Damian tapped his finger on the table near his plate to catch his attention.

“Richard, you remember that I had to go on some Wayne Enterprises business tomorrow, correct?” Damian asked and was met with a tentative nod from Dick. “Lucius Fox called this morning and my presence will be required until Sunday evening.”

Dick eyes cast towards the ground. In that moment, Damian daydreamed of brutalizing each of the businessmen that had forced the elongation of this pointless trip. Four days was the longest he would have been away from the manor since Dick had returned. Removing any layer of comfort from Dick’s life for that long was risky, and his disappearance today hadn’t been reassuring that he would be fine over the days Damian would be gone.

“Since your brother will be gone for so long,” Bruce said in a damage control attempt. “I thought that it would be best if I stayed home until he got back. No working, and no patrol, just you and me.

Dick shot his head up and his eyes sparkled in contained excitement.

“What kind of businessman would I be if I couldn’t get a long weekend off to spend with my ward?”

Once again, and just as suddenly, Bruce had his arms full of a child who had flung himself at his guardian. A full weekend between them was rare, four days was unprecedented. Bruce buried his face in Dick’s strawberry scented hair. This was good.

“Anytime, chum.” He whispered to the child. “Now, I want that plate cleared before we go out tonight. There will be no low blood sugar incidents again, remember?”

Dick agreed and set in on clearing away any trace of the meal that Alfred had prepared for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a tumblr dontfeedthebabytigers.tumblr.com


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another two weeks and another chapter! For those of you who have asked about Barbara and Cass, just know that I have written the chapter they are in, but that chapter will not be coming out for a while as I like to be at least four chapters ahead of what I am publishing. They are coming though and when they do they are bringing some pretty interesting developments with them.  
> Also the foul demon of writers block is my ultimate enemy here so I have planned out the entirty of this fic from chapter to chapter. So if anyone is wondering how long this will be estimate around thirty chapters.  
> With all that said, enojoy!

Dick sharpened his batarangs the Damian next time caught him alone. After dinner, Dick had disappeared back into the woodwork and was found going through intensive acrobatics warm-ups. Damian had never seen the Flying Graysons in action, but he could imagine the spectacle they once were. When Dick flew on wire lines his elegance washed away the stiff way he held himself when gravity claimed him once more. After Dick came back, he would use to watch his brother’s performances with Bruce. Then, about a year later, Dick had asked that his routines be private. That had been Dick’s first request, and they didn’t want to frighten the boy off the idea of asking for things that they granted his wish without question.

 

Damian sometimes wondered why Dick didn’t want them watching his acrobatics, but he knew the boy would tell him when he was ready. He left him to his acrobatics for his own errands that needed doing before heading to the Mountain. When the door to the gym slammed closed, Damian took that as a sign that Dick was ready to talk.

 

Each step scuffed the ground to let Dick know he was approaching--- the last thing Damian needed was to startle the boy and end up with a carbon fiber batarangs in his shoulder.

 

“Father won’t let anything happen to you while I am gone. You know this, Richard. This is no different than the last time you went out without me.” He watched Dick continue to sharpen the edge, but a slight tremor in his hands portrayed his fear.

 

“You’ve been well trained and will have the undivided protection of Batman.” He knew Dick was pissed at him, being angry was always an easier emotion that fear. Damian had learned that the hard way.

 

Dick seemed content ignoring Damian for the blade he was sharpening. All Damian wanted to do was pull the cord of the sharpener to get his brothers attention, and if it were Jason or his Father sitting there he might have. This was Dick though, he needed more patience than the other members of his patchwork family.

 

“Will you please look at me, Richard.”

 

He did not, but his resolve was beginning to crumble. Damian could see the way his hands tightened around the batarang.

 

“Four days, I will be gone. You won’t even notice that I ever left.” Damian sighed when that got no reaction. The next thing Damian said wasn’t going to go over well, but he needed to say it either way. “I told Father what you wrote about Cobb.”

 

That got Dick to look at him, but it was all hurt and betrayal.

 

“If circumstances allowed,” Damian began to reason. “I would not have told him without your permission first, but he needs to know about Cobb’s appearances. Your anger with me for going behind your back is understandable. But remember, Richard, we are not your enemies. All anyone in this house wants is for you to be safe.”

 

Dick made no display of his thoughts or emotions that Damian could read. He sighed, this was not how tonight was supposed to go. With his departure, Damian knew that there would be some hesitance on Dick’s part. What he had not expected was for that monster to return from where he was being kept. Had they not been positive that the Court was watching their every move, Damian might have canceled the meeting. However, they could not take any chances in letting the Court know that they were on to them. They would have to play along for now.

 

He just hated that Dick had to be caught in the middle of this cold war. There was only once last attempt that Damian could think of to appeal to Dick before he left.

 

“Do you require a hug before I leave?” He held out his arms in an awkward invitation.

 

Dick surprised him when he shook his head and abandoned his task to draw in on himself, legs to his chest and face buried in his knees.

 

Dammit, that was just about the worst response he could get. His brother may not always be open to touch as he once was, but he still loved physical affection when it was on his terms. They always asked, every time. If they asked, Dick usually said yes, unless nightmares left him feeling trapped in his skin. Not once had Damian’s requests for touch been denied because Dick was angry with him, not until that day.

 

“Richard,” Damian tried only for Dick to curl further on himself. “I will see you when I return, and I will make this up to you.”

 

He waited for Dick to change his mind, but he made no move towards Damian.

 

Damian wasn’t a child anymore, and the short fuse that he once had was now somewhat longer in length. Father had helped reign him in from being the unruly child he had once been with no parenting experience beforehand. He had done a commendable job, but, hard as he tried, Damian was still the son of Talia al Ghul. He was the heir to the Leagues of Assassins. Empathy and understanding the complexities of childbearing were missing from the lessons he received as a young boy. While he understood the torturous conditions, beings formed into a human weapon were to a young boy, Damian’s lessons were nothing like Dick’s.

 

He had been trained since birth to fight, but Dick had been ripped from a normal life and brutalized. There was a distinction, a divide, that split their experiences apart and left Damian out of his depth and spinning in the murky waters.

 

“I am sorry, Richard.” He whispered, so only Dick could hear him. There was no point in dragging his departure out any further. Not when he could tell that his presence was hurting Dick.

 

Bruce stood next to the zeta-tube in the bat suit armor, the cape and cowl draped over his arm. He didn’t need to speak for Damian to know his question.

 

“He’s upset with me, but, if dinner was anything to go by, I doubt that he harbors any resentment towards you.”

 

Bruce nodded. He had expected as much when he saw the small spark in Dick’s eyes disappear at the news that his brother would be gone for so long. “This will be good for him.”

 

Damian’s logical side agreed. Their bond had become a crutch for Dick, as it was one of the only things that survived the shredder they took to his memory. They were in the process of getting Dick to become more independent. That was the whole point of this business trip, and the regime they had would have worked too, had the trip not been extended. Four days was a lot to ask of Dick right now, but Damian couldn’t back out of the trip now.

 

“Watch over him,” the ‘I’ll skin you if you don’t’ went unspoken.

 

Bruce nodded and watched as his son disappeared in the zeta-beam. This was going to be an interesting weekend, he thought when as he pulled on the cowl and disappeared in black Kevlar. He passed by the garage where Dick was waiting on the hood of the Batmobile and kept going to the main room of the Batcave where Bluejay sat at the computer. Bluejay’s legs spread over the arm of the chair and he spun in lazy circles that halted when he caught sight of his old mentor walking towards him, brooding.

 

“Trouble in paradise?” Bluejay asked with a million dollar smile that Batman met with a glare until Bluejay got out of his chair. “Nothing ever changes around here. I don’t know if I should be nostalgic or annoyed.”

 

Batman makes a noise in a lazy form of acknowledgment and takes his place in the chair. “Two hours ago, Joker broke out of Arkham.”

 

“Before you get started on your monologue, shouldn’t we wait for the little tyke to get here?”

 

“I debriefed Robin while we were waiting for you.” There was a hint of an accusation in his voice that almost felt like home to Bluejay. A very annoying home, but a home all the same.

 

“Is he speaking today?” No answer to Batman was as good as a no. “How about signing?”

 

“Nightwing reported that he was writing earlier.”

 

“Well, I guess that’s better than nothing,” Bluejay said as he leaned on the side of Batman’s chair, all while ignoring the annoyed look Batman threw at him. “Tell me about Joker. Has he made an appearance yet?”

 

Batman gave him that ‘no I haven’t been able to find him yet’ glare. “He’s likely laying low, gather a following before announcing himself.”

 

“Two hours,” Bluejay didn’t like knowing where Joker was for longer than two minutes. “that’s more than enough time to find a competent Joker cult. He should be popping up any time now.”

 

The Joker cults were a new form of infecting that Gotham was fighting. They had begun to organize a few years ago, and they went from teenagers tagging buildings with his image to homicidal maniacs. Chaos followed after them, and they were easy help for the Joker to hire whenever he broke out of Arkham.

 

“That’s why we need to find him.” Batman hated these cults, what they believed to be their messiah.

 

“Just that?” Bluejay asked. “No other reasons, or even just one reason with an ironic name and an eccentric choice of headgear?”

 

Batman didn’t even get the time to glare before the alarms in the Cave went off alerting them of a certain emblem that was lighting the Gotham sky.

 

“Looks like they found him.” Bluejay smacked Batman’s arm and ran over to his motorcycle. He waved at Robin before tearing out of the Cave, a trail of smoke and the scent of tires in his wake. The Batmobile followed close behind as they drove towards the Gotham skyline, thankful for the fact that it was not yet on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talk to me dontfeedthebabytigers.tumblr.com


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow what a crazy week, I won't bore everyone with the detail, but I had three essays due last weekend along with a screenplay and a short story. But I made it, and the chapter is not only here but it is early. I'm going to a concert tonight so if you comment I probably won't reply until tomorrow. Speaking of, thanks again to everyone who comments. That always makes my day and I probably said this before but you are all too sweet. I can't make this much longer because I have to get ready, but I hope everyone has a wonderful week and enjoy the chapter.

The Joker was running with a group of Joker Cult extremists, according to the Commissioner. They were known as the Laughing Widows, due to their trademark crime of breaking into the homes of newlyweds, killing one of the spouses, and carving an ear-to-ear smile on the face of the other. Batman had been on their trail for months, but, every time he took out large numbers of them, they recruited more. Far as Batman could tell, there were two groups. Each group had around twenty of Gotham’s sickest minds to help them. If Joker had gotten to one, or both, of the groups was still unknown. They just had to assume that the Joker’s reach stretched throughout the Laughing Widows ranks.

One half operated on the East Side, and the other on the West. Bluejay’s informants had spotted the Joker on the East near the docks, while Batman’s heard wind of the cultists causing terror just beyond the Narrows. They had to split, the Batmobile headed towards the water while Bluejay went west with Spoiler.

There was only one warehouse near the docks that was lit, what could have been a misdirect had it been one of Gotham’s subtler Rogues, but that was never Joker’s style. He enjoyed painting a large target and watch as the fly crawled into the web before he blew it to hell. The game for him wasn’t about being found. No, it was seeing if Batman and Robin could come out alive.

Robin climbed to the roof of the warehouse while Batman went through the front door. A textbook diversion tactic, but lackluster enough so that the Joker wouldn’t think that his ‘greatest enemy’ would do something so boring. At least that was the plan, but with the Joker plans had a habit of eroding.

“Robin, comm check.” Batman’s voice was just as intense over Robin’s earpiece as it was in person.

Robin tapped a button on his wrist computer and checked the preset messages and connection to their private line. He typed a reply on his wrist computer; his fingers moved with the practiced ease that came from practice and necessity.

“All systems functioning,” came a robotic surrogate voice. “In position, no sign of the Joker.”

“Keep your eyes open, Robin. I don’t want any surprises.” Unlikely, they knew that.

Robin sent a confirmation message and got to work removing a pane of glass from the skylight he crouched next to with a suction cup and a glass cutter. With a clearer view of the floor below, Robin’s enhanced eyes were able to pick up a faint outline of a man, scratch that, multiple men. There were twenty-three men and women down there in the shadows.

His fingers went to the computer on his wrist to alert Batman when he paused, head cocked to the side. He grabbed a batarang and threw it behind him where it embedded itself in an AC unit. Caught in between a batarang and a piece of cold metal was the shoulder from a tacky purple suit that held none other than the Joker.

“Fifty-feet, that’s five closer than last time, Boy Blunder. Someday I’m going to creep up right behind ya, and I’ll finally be able to put a smile on that face.” He burst out laughing, high pitched and manic.

Robin began to type out his message again. He didn’t even look at the Joker, and if there was one thing that the Joker hated it was being ignored. The other thing would always be the Robins, and this one itched his brain in the most maddening way. All the other Batkid’s he could poke and prod, but not this one. This Robin he couldn’t sneak up on like the others, even the first one was more fun, and he had always been such a downer. There was no banter or funny jokes, but just long silences and glares. Even at that moment, the kid was tattling on him like the child he was. At least the other Robin’s had some class and would throw a few punches to make life interesting.

“Now, now, now, there’s no need to call Bats. He doesn’t like me very much, as I’m sure you’re aware by now. I doubt he’d let us chat long.” Words were spoken sweet as a poisoned lollypop in the hands of a toddler.

Robin glanced up at the Joker, a second of time devoted to the maniac, an afterthought. That wasn’t enough, never enough for the Joker. His fingers only halted for a second over the keys of that blue-lit screen. These kids and their silly technology.

“Pluck a few feathers off one bird and suddenly the flock gets skittish.” There we go, that stopped the boy. Those Robins always had such a bad habit of sticking together. Long pale fingers wrapped around the edges of the batarang, blood dripped from fresh cuts as the weapon was pulled from the AC unit. “I wonder what happens when you put the extra work in and carve one up?”

Robin hit send on the message as the Joker stalked towards him. He crouched into a better fighting stance, stealing one glance down to Batman who was being attacked from all sides by cultists. The Laughing Widows were savage killers, but unpracticed fighters. Their victims were defenseless and unassuming, nothing like the Batman. With their sloppy fighting style, the only advantage that they had was the sheer amount of them, but that was more an inconvenience than a threat. With factors such as fatigue, average fight time, and the distance between the floor and the ceiling it should take five minutes for Batman to get Robin. More if they get a few lucky hits with a small knife, less if a gas pellet with a sedative was dispersed. Either way, Robin was facing the Joker now.

The Joker swung the batarang at Robin, but he missed because of a well-timed flip over Joker’s head, landing behind him without a sound. Robin kicked out the Joker’s feet with an efficient kick. When the Joker landed on his back, the batarang he held falling out of reach, Robin straddled his chest to pin his arms to his sides. From his utility belt, Robin pulled out another batarang and pressed it below the Joker’s adam apple, pinning him in a minute.

Now he just had to wait four more minutes for Batman.

“What kind of birdseed is Batsy feeding you kids these days?” The Joker chuckled. “We should really do this more often. You could get a permission slip from Pops and I could get a hatchet, what do you say?”

Robin pressed the batarang closer to the Joker’s throat, a drop of blood from the Joker’s neck followed the wings curve before dripping off the edge.

“You want to do it, don’t ya?” Joker teased, his smile somehow found a way to grow wider. “Come on now, Birdbrain, it isn’t that hard. Just a little pressure, like you’re brushing your teeth. You can do it, come on, I want you to at least get a taste. I’m telling you to kid, just do it.”

An order. Robin drew back to weapon, poised to kill.

“Do it,” The Joker yelled, his mouth starting to foam. “Come on, I want you to do it. Show Batsy the kid I’ve been dying to meet.”

Talons do not hesitate, for to hesitate is to die. Robin wasn’t a Talon though, and his grip on batarang fell slack then dropped to the ground with a clatter. His posture fell, not much, but enough to give the Joker’s arms the slack they needed. The Joker kicked up and hit Robin in the back of the head. With a quick turn, the Joker was now on top of him, and his hold wasn’t giving way.

“I thought you were really going to do me in this time,” he sounded disappointed at the prospect of being alive. “Oh well, I guess that I have to teach you what happens when you fight against instinct.”

The Joker’s laugh was loud enough for Batman to hear from the warehouse below. Chilling echoes of joyous giggles chased bounced off the rusted metal walls, queuing a similar response in those he was fighting. The last time that Batman had heard those laughs they had been coming from a plaster body cast; his hand had twitched with the need to add a shattered jaw to the list of broken bones that he had inflicted.

“Robin, report,” Batman demanded, but there was no answer. All he heard was the constant ‘HA HA HA’ from the roof. He still had to work through ten Laughing Widows before he could go get Robin; he just needed an opening to reach his utility belt.

As did Robin, but the Joker had him pinned on the roof. The madman held a blade to his throat, but he did not look frightened as the Joker needed.

“I know that we don’t get along, but would ya do me a favor and scream a little. I want to make sure Batsy gets to hear all the fun we’re having.”

Bang, a gun went off and the batarang spun out of the Joker’s hand, almost taking one of his fingers off with it. Robin took advantage of the distraction to grab one of the escrima sticks on his back and stick the Joker with the taser end.

“Gotta say, I was really hoping I would beat you guys here.”

Robin glared at the man who saved him. The man with a red helmet on his head and a smoking gun in his hand.

“Don’t look at me like that, kid. After all, I did just save your life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Say howdy at dontfeedthebabytigers.tumblr.com


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another early in the day update (please don't get used to this I generally don't have plans on thursday that I need to account for). Life update! I'm on Spring Break which would be nice if a winter storm didn't come through and decide that I should be shoveling instead of relaxing. Also, a lot of drama happened (ended a long term relationship and might have lost my summer job), but I'm still hopeful that things are going to work out. Oh, I don't know if anyone saw, but I wrote a birdflash fic called Being a Superhero and if birdflash is something you ship give it a look.
> 
> Also, go see Love, Simon if you haven't. It was beautiful all around (and I'm pretentious film studies minor so you can trust me)

When Batman was able to retrain all of the cultists and confirm that the package was a misdirect, he went to the rooftop, fists clenched and ready to defend his Robin. The sight of the Joker and Red Hood hogtied with grapple wire was not what he had expected. Only years of expert training kept Batman from displaying his confusion, but he almost slipped and showed his relief when his eyes landed on Robin. His partner sat on an AC unit nearby, a quick glance over didn’t reveal any major injuries, maybe some bruising on his cheek that was already clearing. Robin didn’t move towards him, just sat and watched as Batman walked towards him.

“Are you okay?” Robin wasn’t the best of keeping track of his injuries, so the nod he gave didn’t ease Batman’s concern. But just asking Robin was good practice for the boy to observe what his body needed.

“He’s fine.” Red Hood grumbled from where he was tied on the ground.

Batman glared at Red Hood, at the man his son had become. His eyes landed on the guns that were unloaded and disassembled next Robin, and he looked back over to Red Hood. This time felt more like an accusation than the regular contempt that Tim was familiar with.

“You can’t honestly believe that I would try to hurt him?” Even with all the family resentment that grew a little more potent every day he still felt something for the kid, something hard to place and abstract. Whatever he felt wasn’t easy to pull dissect in his mind, and there wasn’t anybody around in the single bedroom apartment that he was squatting in. So, Tim decided there were better tasks to focus on than whatever mess his family relationships had become.

“What are you doing here, Red Hood?” Batman asked with a bite in his tone that Time was used to hearing by now.

“’You’re welcome for the rescue, Red.’” Tim said with a deep growl that mimicked Batman’s before responding in a peppy voice--- not unlike the one he used as Robin. “Don’t worry about, I live to serve.”

“He can handle himself,” Batman said as Tim wondered how anyone thought that Superman was the sanctimonious one.

“That’s a great policy against that lunatic. Must have been why he was seconds away from cutting the kids throat.” Tim smirked when he saw a little twitch of a frown on Batman’s face. Finally, a reaction. “Don’t feel that you’re still three-out-of-four on Robin’s you’ve failed. Now, I never got the chance to finish high school, but if I’m not mistaken that’s still a passing grade.”

Batman had turned his attention to Robin during Tim’s jab, but the Boy Wonder looked anywhere but the white lenses of the cowl. The bravado dropped for a minute, and Batman went over to Tim and cut him loose.

“Thanks, Old man. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think there’s a gang war that needs my attention and thanks to the kid I have to go find some new weapons.”

Tim turned to leave him, but a strong hand grabbed his bicep.

“Red Hood,” Batman’s voice had that weird softness to it that Tim remembered from nights when he had fallen asleep in front of the computer, waiting for his dad to come home.

Every muscle in Tim’s body tensed on contact. He hated those memories and the way they made his gut twist and his trigger finger twitch. The only thing that kept him from ripping his arm out of his father’s grasp was a genuine curiosity of what Batman was going to say.

“Leave the Joker to us.” The Bat said. “Next time, I will have you arrested.”

Typical.

“Yeah, good seeing you too, Old Man.” Tim was about to leave when he stopped and looked at his little brother. “You are okay, right?”

Robin hid his confusion well, but Tim knew he wasn’t expecting any kind of interaction from how long it took him to nod. Tim thought that he may have seen a smile on the kid’s lips, but he called it a trick of the light and shot of his grapple to carry him away.

He was a twisting hurricane of emotions that only got more intense when he ran into Batman and Robin. Nightwing always acted entitled enough when Tim was a child that he could cut himself off and feel little for the loss of their relationship. He didn’t run into Bluejay much--- even after his brother moved back to Gotham--- and their mutual frustrations made up for the tension that had existed when Jason had first taken the title of Robin from him.

Batman and Robin were different. They were a mirror of a happier time, but a cracked and splintered one. Batman was colder now. Thought he had pulled himself together for the de--taloned bird. That ruthlessness only seemed to come back when Batman had to face what Tim had done, the failure he had become.

Tim couldn’t deal with this. He didn’t have the tools to even begin. What he did have was a utility belt and a semi-automatic at ‘home’ that called him. He had the city that killed his blood father and destroyed Tim in so many new and interesting ways. That seemed a good a place as any to start.

* * *

 

Batman, Robin, Bluejay, and Spoiler brought the Joker to Arkham, along with all the Laughing Widows that they could capture. Bluejay didn’t stick around and said something about staying in Jump City for the night, and Spoiler stormed off after hearing how Bruce treated Red Hood. This left Batman and Robin returning home to an almost empty Man. They showered without a word, and the silence was only broken when Bruce caught Dick in an attempt to sneak upstairs.

“Not so fast, chum. You know the drill.”

Dick threw his head back in a dramatic fashion that let Bruce know that not all the performing instincts had been removed from his ward. They went to the Med Bay, where Bruce pulled on a pair of latex gloves as Dick climbed on one of the many cots. Dick pulled off the Gotham Academy sweater--- one that Bruce recognized from Damian’s wardrobe--- with practiced ease.

Bruce got to work testing Dick’s range of motion--- each of his movements televised and in the same order that they always occurred. His ward seemed to be telling the truth when he said that he had no injuries. The light bruising that had been on his jaw was already a pale yellow and would be gone by morning. Physically, his son was okay, but there was something brewing behind his blue eyes.

“That was the first time you faced the Joker in a while. How are you doing?”

Dick shrugged, and other than that motion he seemed indifferent to the events of the night.

All of Bruce’s children had run-ins with the Joker, they ranged from disturbing to unspeakable in their horror. The encounters left his own stomach turning on the best night. He had expected that Dick would be immune to the horrors of the Joker after the trauma he had experienced at the hands of the Court. But the madman had his way of ruining minds. He frustrated Damian, drove Tim to extremes, angered Jason, and, somehow, managed to make Dick wake up in a cold sweat.

His ward would never admit his fear; he didn’t know how. Bruce would worry more if Dick wasn’t so good at bouncing back from the horrific encounters with the Joker. His unshakable optimism was a mystery to Bruce and catnip for the Joker. Maybe he shouldn’t have Robin out tonight, even if it was assumed to be a punishment. Better to be upset for a while then face another criminal intent on destroying his already corrupted innocence. Bruce wondered if Dick would listen to him, or if that would be the last straw. Dick had been a rule-breaker in the beginning, and Bruce was waiting for the day that his ward’s rebellious streak came back.

He would need to consult with the others before any decisions were made about Dick being allowed to confront the Joker. In the meantime, he chose to focus on the nasty bruise that he found on Dick’s shoulder blade.

“I see your nightly activities went smoothly,” Alfred commented on the lack of gaping wounds as he entered the Med Bay with a tray that carried two hot chocolates. “How are you feeling, Master Dick?”

Dick took his mug and held out a thumb up.

“Then there’s cause for celebration. How does blueberry pancakes for breakfast sound?”

Dick beamed at his grandfather that knew that Dick’s all-time favorite was blueberry pancakes.

“Of course, I don’t believe those pancakes would take nearly as delicious when the person eating them is sleep deprived. I shudder to think that any blueberry pancakes might go to waste.” Alfred put all of his Shakespearean training into his performance.

Dick’s sense of theater still needed working on as he was soon staring wide-eyed and worried at Alfred.

“A jest, my lad. However, I must insist you make up for last night with at least eight hours of rest.”

Dick considered, but he soon nodded in agreement.

“Why don’t you head up, chum,” Bruce said, snapping off the gloves and throwing them away. “I’ll join you in a few minutes to lock up the Manor.”

He nodded once, put the sweater back on, and jumped off the table.

Once they were out of his exceptional earshot, Bruce deflated with a curse.

“I take it capturing the Joker did not go as well as I had originally thought,” Alfred said handed Bruce his hot chocolate.

“He separated us, and somehow got the upper hand on Dick.” Bruce took a long drink from his hot chocolate and hoped it would soothe his nerves like the drink had when he was a scared child. “Red Hood was there too.”

Alfred looked down. “I see. How was Master Tim, did he look healthy?”

“He did, just pissed at me for the most part.”

“So, I see nothing has changed.”

“Maybe,” Bruce said. “He saved Dick”

“They were always close.” Alfred smiled as fond memories of laughter from happier times played in his mind.

“yeah, they were.” Bruce meant to say more, as he always did. He had a bad habit of only speaking his mind when it wasn’t necessary or wanted. “I should get up there to him.”

“Best not to leave the lad waiting,” Alfred said, and only when Bruce was near the stairs did he call to him. “Be sure to get some rest yourself, Master Bruce. I would hate if your pancake experience was anything less than sublime.”

Bruce’s mouth twitched in the small smile that he had gotten so good at over the years. He then headed up stone stairs and left Alfred alone as the butler pulled a picture from his breast pocket. It was old, two long creases in it from being folded for years. The photo stayed with him always. The only remaining photo of Timothy Drake that remained outside of the Manor’s attic. He smiled and held on to that sweet sound of laughter for just a little longer before folding the photo and putting it away again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yell at me or ask me questions dontfeedthebabytigers.tumblr.com


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello once again! How are you all doing? I'm slowly losing my mind because a week from now I will be an hour and twenty-two minutes into Infinity War and the thought of that excites me so much that I stop breathing. One of the first movies I remember watching was X-Men and I've seen every MCU movie in theaters opening weeked so this is a big deal for me. Also my favorite musician Elohim's first album comes out a week from tomorrow and that's exciting (if you haven't checked her out I suggest you do)  
> I've found that listening to music can really help connect to characters and since these characters are for an AU I'm going to link what song I listened to for the inpsiration for each of the Robins (I mainly just love reccomending music). So here you go.  
> Dick: Blue Angle- Graveyard Club https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alxn0MyL_ko  
> Jason: crash- EDEN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw81bRYUzVM  
> Tim: I Can't Swim- Elliot Moss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRom7tbAF1I  
> Damian: Prodigal Son- Rationale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pos_zEefS5s  
> So that's that. If you ever want to talk or ask questions about this fic (or ask for music recs) my tumblr is at the bottom

The warm scent of blueberries and butter drifted through the silent halls of Wayne Manor, and in the epicenter stood Alfred. He worked in the kitchen, a clean apron around his neck, and perfectly round pancakes on the griddle before him. To his left, a stack of pancakes stood in a tall tower along with strawberries, bananas, and bacon. When he spoke, he seemed to talk to the room.

“You can come down from there now, Master Dick.” A smirk played at his lips when his grandson dropped from the vent and sat deflated at the round table in the corner of the room. Even before, Dick always seemed more inclined to eat when he wasn’t in the gold encrusted dining room.

“How long?” Dick asked in the same quiet tone he always used on the days he felt up to speaking. He still wore his cotton pajamas; the softest thread counts that money could buy.

“I’ve been aware of your prying eyes for last ten minutes. How long have you been waiting in the ventilation, might I ask?”

Dick smiled, a glorious sight. “Fifteen.”

“Alas, you have deceived this old man once again.”

“Don’t lie, Alfred.“ Bruce said as he entered the kitchen wearing slacks, a button-up, and a blue sweater. He took his place next to Dick and the table, and had to stop himself from running a hand through his ward’s hair. The morning felt like one pulled from his memories, warm and ideal. “You haven’t been an old man once in your life.”

Back when Bruce was Dick’s age and Alfred had been in his forties, they would play catch together when his parents were at work and the chores had been done. They could play for hours without Alfred tiring. Even when Alfred was in his seventies, he did the same for Dick. Bruce would watch them from his bedroom window. Alfred would chase Dick around as the boy laughed his head off, and he would catch him with ease when Dick launched himself on Alfred’s frail shoulders. His health would always stay at the forefront of Bruce’s mind. He didn’t think that any of them were ready to lose Alfred anytime soon.

“I know you think me young, Master Bruce. However, I believe my knees would care to disagree with you.”

Dick’s eyes widened by a fraction and he pulled out the chair on his other side. He pointed at Alfred and then the seat.

“How kind of you, Master Dick. Ut, I must get a head start on cleaning the East Wing.”

The boy patted the seat of the chair, urgency brewing in his eyes. “Please,” he whispered, slightly louder than before.

Few things were rarer than Dick asking for something. When he had asked his first question, Dick had hidden from them for three days. Damian had been the one to find him, shaking and clasping his neck as he begged for kindness. He had told them about being fitted with a shocker collar at first like a disobedient dog. Bruce had to excuse himself from the conversation and went to the forest just outside of the grounds to kick a tree. Had he gone on the streets in such a rage he might have broken his one rule. Even though he had been covered in splinters and cuts, Bruce knew that a tree could take his hits.

There was no denying Dick unless necessary because of the lengths the Court had gone to make him a drone that would operate without question. To deny him would cause more harm then a late start on dusting the unused rooms would ever bring Alfred.

“I don’t suppose there is any harm in a late start.” He sat down next to Dick with graceful ease. “Now, how many pancakes would you like, Master Dick?”

Two fingers resulted in two large blueberry pancakes being plopped down on his plea and drowned in maple syrup. Dick went to work on his breakfast while his father drank the coffee Alfred had provided. After a few bites, Dick stopped eating which made Bruce’s stomach drop. Dick hadn’t eaten much yesterday, and he couldn’t afford to get any skinnier. But Bruce soon found that his worries were misplaced. Dick grabbed two pancakes and set them on Bruce’s empty plate, and he did the same for Alfred’s.

Bruce hadn’t even thought about getting himself food, but Dick noticed everything. Now, if only Bruce could get Dick’s excellent observation skills aimed towards his own needs. That would be fantastic, but they were a long way from Dick noticing his own hunger. Last month he hadn’t even noticed he had been stabbed, or he had and he never told anyone. Bruce still didn’t know which was the bigger issue.

“Alright, alright, I can take a hint.” He took his fork and started cutting up his pancakes. When he got a bite in his mouth he looked at Dick for approval. Dick smiled at him in a way that told Bruce that his ward thought that he was being ridiculous. Bruce could tease all he wanted, but there was no denying the relief he felt knowing that Dick was feeling well enough to speak and act even slightly like a child.

There also wasn’t too much complaining he could make about being forced to eat his breakfast like a child. The pancakes were delicious.

"How are preparations for the Gala, Alfred?” Bruce asked.

“As planned, sir. Master Dick, will you still be in attendance, or should I contact Mister Kent if you would rather spend the night there?”

Dick stared forward and a small wrinkle above his nose portrayed his hesitance in joining the family for their Spring Gala. The event landed near his birthday, and, as Dick was learning to handle himself better around crowds, Bruce broached the idea of announcing Dick’s place in the family as Bruce’s newest ward. The fact that the Gala’s main goal was to proclaim Dick as the Wayne Family’s new ward had been withheld from the guests and press for when Dick need to pull out at the last-minute. But they all knew that Dick wanted this, and he need to feel like he was part of something. Maybe then he would stop being so afraid that Bruce would kick him out after he made any mistake.

  “I want to go.” Dick said, his voice a bit stronger. “I need to. It’s time.”

Bruce looked down at his ward, strong in the face of well-deserved fear, and he felt proud. “Then it’s time.”

“They lapsed into familiar silence that was a normal guest at meal times, the only sound being the clink of silver on china. At the end of their meal, Alfred gathered their plates and cleaned them off.

As Alfred got to work, Bruce settled deeper into his chair. He nursed a near empty cup of coffee. Today was looking out to be a good day if he felt  awake after only one cup, usually he needed three before he felt like a human. He looked at his son who inspected the strawberry in the palm of his hand. At this point, Dick had probably known how many seeds were on the berry, how much it weighed, and how to use it as a weapon. Maybe one day he would get to the point where he ate berries before he could think how to hurt someone with one.

“It’s your day, Dick.” Bruce said to distract him from the strawberry in his hand. “What do you want to do?”

Dick shook his head. “No, our day.”

“I see. How about a compromise?” Bruce proposed. “A movie? Anything as long as you choose.”

Dick thought hard, and he still phrased his choice like a question. “Scooby Doo?”

“Deal.” He held up his hand and grinned when Dick high-fived him with a smile. “You should go get dressed, then we can work on your assignments.”

Dick’s expression turned sour at the thought of the reading assignments Alfred had given him.

When Dick came to live with them after his parent’s deaths he had been in the beginnings of his education. Bruce and the boys helped Dick, once an eager young learner, further the work that his parents had begun. But the Court didn’t need Dick to read, they needed him to kill, and his studies were abandoned.

“You skipped them yesterday, and if we do them today Alfred might make us cinnamon rolls tomorrow for breakfast instead of cereal.”

“I like cereal.” Dick said, indignant.

“More than you like cinnamon rolls?”

He sighed. Dick knew he had fought a losing battle once cinnamon rolls were brought up. “No.”

“Then we better get started. Go ahead, I’ll meet you in the study.

After Dick made a show of  sulking away, Alfred gave Bruce a glance. “He’s doing well today.”

“He is for now.” Bruce ran a hand over his face and leaned back in his chair. “Be ready to catch any signs that he’s getting worse. The last thing we need is for this weekend to become a disaster.”

“I’m sure Master Damian would agree if he were here.”

Bruce nodded. “Before he left, Damian told me that Dick noticed Cobb’s been more daring with his surveillance this year. That’s why Dick was so spooked yesterday.”

“I see.” An unmistakable strain pulled at Alfred’s tone as he scrubbed the plates harder than necessary. “Could it be that the Court is reforming?”

“Anything is possible with the Court.” Bruce stood and began helping Alfred with the drying. “It could be entirely possible that Cobb has gone solo, or that he just has more free time to stalk a child. There are too many unknowable factors.”

“Yes, they have done a remarkable job of covering their tracks over the years.”

“Don’t remind me, I’m still going over that compound that Dick led us to.”

Alfred hummed. “Still no luck on that front, I assume.”

“They covered their tracks well, but an organization as large as the Court would be bound to overlook one detail. I’m getting close to finding their fatal flaw too.”

Alfred yanked the glass Bruce was drying out of his hands, along with the dish towel. “You’re leaving streaks.”

Bruce watched the man who raised him drying the crystal in a meticulous fashion. His eyes drifted to the age spots that littered Alfred’s wrinkled hands.

“I should have taught you better.” Alfred said as he handed Bruce the now clear glass.

“You did the best you could.” Bruce had been far from an easy child to raise, and Alfred probably never thought he would have to raise him in place of his parents. He did all that he could, and nothing more. Bruce would have never asked him too, because the one thing Alfred couldn’t do for him was bring them back.

“Bruce,” Alfred said. “When you get to my age you will realize you could have always done better. You just have to get there to see that.”

Where is this coming from?”

Alfred pulled the plug out from the sink. “I don’t believe that I have to tell you, Master Bruce.”

He didn’t. Bruce knew the longer he researched the Court and continued pushing them around that they would strike against him. Losing Bruce wasn’t something that Dick could handle--- not to mention if his brothers were killed. Neither of them could make it through that.

“If you could do it all differently, what would you do?” Bruce asked.

“I can’t answer that question.” Alfred said, pulling his apron off. “Do I wish you had never picked up the cowl and saved yourself from the destiny of an early death, of course. But your life is no longer your own. Without the Batman, Damian wouldn’t exist, Tim would have grown up neglected, Jason would likely be dead, and young Dick would have had all the humanity stripped from his heart. Those boys wouldn’t have lives without you. I couldn’t be prouder.”

“But?” There was always a condition to everything.

Alfred felt his chest rattle as he sighed. “You have always put your body, heart, and mind on the line to protect others from the world. I simple worry that one day the world will ask for too much, and I don’t think that I am ready to see your funeral quite yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lets talk dontfeedthebabytigers.tumblr.com


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly didn't know if I was going to get this one out. I have so much homework to do right now I am more than a little overwhelmed. But I made a promise and I'm sticking with it. Besides its time for two characters that I have been asked for since the beginning. That's right, it's Babs and Cass time. Get ready.

Thursday was a quiet day. The halls in Wayne manor held a fragile calm that had been unseen by the scratched hardwood since before Damian’s arrival many years ago. The only commotion came from the den as Bruce and Dick raced to see who could discover the Scooby Doo culprit first. Dick won every time, even if only because Bruce let him. Dick’s prize was sneaking desert in before dinner--- a risky move in a house where Alfred seemed to lurk behind every corner. They made ice cream sundaes with chocolate sauce, bananas, and rainbow sprinkles. If Alfred had found them out from the depleted ice cream supply, he didn’t say anything. Just this once.

Bruce posited the idea of Cass coming over the next day and possibly bringing along Barbara. Dick beamed at the idea and Bruce almost had to resort to bribing to get the boy asleep. Barbara was Dick’s only friend both his age and outside of the family. Out of everyone in the family, Dick had always been the people person, and Bruce knew that being stuck inside with only three other people had been starting to get to the boy. He almost broke Bruce’s ribs when he told Dick that he was ready for a friend. Did the fact that she also had a cape make Bruce feel more secure about introducing Dick to a social life, without a doubt. He also knew how suffocating the family could be--- himself especially. Having a fresh face that Dick could relax around had been a necessity.

They arrived at noon, right on schedule. Dick hated it when people arrived earlier than expected, got anxious when they were late.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Cain, Ms. Gordon.” Alfred couldn’t contain his glee at seeing Cass and Barbara. “Lunch will be ready within the hour. Master Wayne is waiting for you in the study, Ms. Cain. He looks forward to hearing about your latest trip abroad.”

Cass nodded her thanks and left to find her father.

“Do you know where Dick is, Alfie?” Barbara asked looking around the large lobby. He usually met her when she arrived, usually couldn’t wait to see her.

Alfred smiled down at young Barbara, only a few years older than Dick and with all the intelligence that Jim Gordon bragged about every time he passed by. “I believe Master Dick is in the room with us, Ms. Gordon, or maybe above us.” They both looked up to the beams that cross the high ceiling.

Alfred gave a merry laugh. “Good luck on this round, Ms. Gordon. Do try not to break anything from the fifteen century or earlier this time.”

“No fair,” Barbara said, arms crossed with a wicked grin on her face. “Those are all the most breakable antiques.”

“How will you ever survive,” Alfred said as he made his way back to the kitchen to finish their meal. He seldom got the opportunity to prepare a meal for so many people these days, the food had to be perfect.

Barbara surveyed the room for any sign of her friend, but, of course, Dick left no clues.

“You heard Alfred, Boy Wonder, no breaking the really old stuff. Now, we know that is going to happen if I have to start chasing after you.”

A soft footfall announced Dick as he dropped behind her. First thing Barbara noticed when she turned around was his comfy clothing--- a baggy sweatshirt over a leotard. He must have been working out, Barbara thought. Then she noticed that Dick smiled at her, but not a happy Dick Grayson smile. Just as Dick had many names--- Richard, Dick, Robin, Talon, the Gray Son--- he had many smiles that he put on like a show. Right now, Dick’s smile seemed stretched, taut with an inner turmoil.

“I knew where you were.” She joked, trying to see where his level of humor fell today.

“No, you didn’t” A subdued glint in his eyes, usually he enjoyed sneaking up on people. He made a game out of it, and he always loved surprising people. Right now, he didn’t look like he had won another game. Dick looked like he had already lost but didn’t want anyone to know.

“Try and prove that I didn’t.” Barbara gave him an easy smile to help him unwind. She could read Dick Grayson like computer code. His mind was a puzzle, and Barbara loved puzzles. “I’ve missed you. How have you been?”

Dick looked torn; he glanced down the empty halls for any prying family members. “Not good.”

“What happened?” Barbara asked.

Dick looked at her. His hands tapped out nervous energy in the only way his training knew how. “Let’s go upstairs.” 

* * *

“Come in,” Bruce called when a firm, yet polite, know resonated through the study. That was Cass’s knock. When Dick did actually knock it was hesitant and soft, afraid to ask. Jason was firm, confident, and a little too loud. Damian didn’t knock.

Cass entered with a smile and a wave, and Bruce’s heart soared to see his daughter again.

“Cass, it’s been too long.” Bruce used his most Brucie voice and crossed the room to give his daughter a hug. “How was Bruges?”

“Educational.” Was her response. She pulled a vinyl a bag she carried on her shoulder and handed it to her father. “For you.”

“Brahms,” Bruce remarked. “A good choice. Why don’t we give this a listen?” Bruce went over to the turntable and set up the record. Once the music began playing, Bruce’s façade faded with the lost silence. “What did you find out?”

Cass handed him a USB drive which he plugged into the computer. There were notes and documents, including blurred pictures of Talons dating back decades. Even more, evidence that the Court had influence spreading further than the borders of Gotham could contain.

“Your writing keeps getting better.” He noted as he read the notes that she had written to connect pieces of evidence. “

“I had a great teacher.” She smiled at him before pointing at a single file marked  _HC._ “You need to see this.”

Bruce clicked the file open and was met with an old photograph taken in Bruges almost a century ago. In the photo, there was a man in his twenties shaking hands with a well-dressed older man with a boy standing at his side. A striped circus tent was in the background. The twenty-year-old looked familiar, so Bruce pulled open a file that contained a sketch of William Cobb that Damian had made with Dick’s help. There was an irrefutable resemblance.

“You found him.” A few years of searching and they finally found evidence that William Cobb existed before the Court. His indoctrination couldn’t have been long after the photo had been taken. However, Bruce’s joy at their first lead was sucked away when he remembered the backdrop of the photo.

“He’s at the circus.” Bruce didn’t believe in coincidence, but he wished that he did.

Cass nodded, grief in her heart. She took the mouse and zoomed in on the young boy standing next to the ringmaster. “He is Mr. Haly.”

Bruce had to pace around his study to avoid throwing the computer against the wall. When Dick had first moved in, all he could talk about was the circus and Mr. Haly. Dick saw that man as a grandfather like he saw Alfred. Dick loved that circus, and if they were working with the Court this whole time, well, Bruce didn’t know what that would do to Dick. Even now, the circus was his life.

“You know what this means,” Cass asked, but it wasn’t really a question.

“It means that the Court didn’t pick him at random. They were grooming him, probably from birth.” Bruce had planned to take Dick to the circus when it came back to town later that week. Would they take him back to the Court if they saw him? “What I want to know is why they chose Dick.”

Cass nodded, she had her next mission.

Bruce ejected the USB after making an encrypted copy for his own records. “I assume that I don’t need to tell you that not a word of this leaves the room until we have indisputable proof that Haly’s Circus was working for the Court.”

Cass agreed. She knew Dick, saw herself in him. This news would only bring him pain, and even if there were no collusion he would never feel safe around the circus again. She turned away to leave but stopped when her father spoke again.

“Can I expect you at the Gala next week. I know Dick would love you there.” He could never just ask someone to stay.

She knew this, and she nodded before she left him standing alone with the music.

* * *

 

“Have you talked to Bruce about this?”

Did shook his head. “Bruce doesn’t like talking about Tim.”

Barbara didn’t blame Bruce for that one, at least not completely. She had been there when they found Tim, saw the crazed look in his eyes and heard the sickening laugh play like her dreams original soundtrack. Then with everything that happened after, Tim had always been one of those untouchable subjects within the manor walls. Barbara didn’t even think Bruce had referred to Tim as anything other than Red Hood in years.

“You miss him, don’t you?” Barbara asked the question that everyone knew the answer to because they all had the same one.

“When I came back,” Dick paused to gather his thoughts as he often did when he spoke in longer phrases. “When I came back, Tim was gone. No one would tell me why. Until you. I never got to say sorry, or goodbye.”

She never got to say goodbye either, none of them did. Tim was a dead man that still walked around a Gotham as broken as himself all because she couldn’t get the intel fast enough. Bruce said he didn’t blame her, that the Joker was a madman and a genius, but Barbara couldn’t see how that was supposed to matter. Not when Tim could have been saved from that.

“Hey Dick, can I ask you something?” She waited until he nodded, and her throat almost closed up. “Did he look okay? Healthy?”

Dick observed her like he always did when he couldn’t understand the message behind someone’s words. His gaze passed over her fists and her down-turned eyes. “He looked good.”

Barbara let out a breath and smiled. “Good,” She said. “That’s good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> worry about impending finals with me dontfeedthebabytigers.tumblr.com


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well... I saw Infinity War and I am dead inside. I loved the movie and it was everything that I wanted, but in no universe was I ready for what I witnessed that day. I'm not going to say anything else, but if there are any Stucky shippers reading this I did write a Post-Infinity War fic about them called After the War. Major spoilers, so read at your own discretion. 
> 
> Last thing, I won't be updating for the next month because I need to focus on my finals. Sorry about that, but I've got too much on my plate.

Dick’s screaming woke up Bruce that Saturday night as it had many nights before. Fearful howls pulled Bruce, like a marionette, out of bed and into the room across from his. The room once belonged to Bruce when he was a child, easy to scare and in need of his parent’s affection when the creatures in the night gave him nightmares. Next, the room became Damian’s when Bruce needed to keep the rebellious child on a short leash. The room didn’t switch occupants again until Dick came into their lives for the second time. That decision kept Dick in the room closest to the master suite for when the Court ever came for him again. Never again did Bruce want to hear Alfred so panicked or walk in on an empty room with rumpled blankets.

Then there were nights like tonight. Nights when faceless creatures torture his ward’s mind. Nights when Bruce found Dick curled up under the bed, screaming as he pulled at  “Dick, you need to wake up.” Bruce’s voice was clear and concise; he left no room left for an argument. He hated taking that tone with Dick, but his ward needed to wake up before he started hyperventilating. Softness could come after Dick woke up.

“Come on, Dick. You’ve don’t this before, just open your eyes. You need to do better.”

Nothing. Dick continued to write on the cold hardwood. Cold, Bruce realized, the room was too cold. Outside the re-enforced window, Bruce saw a flurry of snowflakes as they drifted to the ground. Winter had come far too early.

Alfred, still in his night-clothes, rushed into the room and took in the situation. As Bruce continued his attempts to calm Dick, Alfred grabbed the space heater from the closet and set it to eighty degrees. By flicking a switch, Alfred turned on the heated floors and he handed the blanket to Bruce who tried to drape the blanket over Dick as best he could.

Not long after, Bruce and Alfred dripped with sweat. Dick’s screams had all but tapered off into silent tears while he attempted to soak in all the warmth that he could.

“Dick,” Bruce slipped into his concerned parent voice once again. He held out his hand to the child, moving slowly with clear intent. “You’re safe now. Come here, please.”

Dick took Bruce’s hand, the small hand cool against Bruce’s sweaty palm. Once he  was pulled  out from his hiding place, Dick curled into Bruce’s lap. His father muttered to him about how he was safe, he would warm up soon, and how he was sorry that he hadn’t known about the sudden snowstorm.

Getting details from Dick’s time with the Court was near impossible, trauma had sewn the boy’s lips nearly shut. From what Bruce did learn from Dick’s reactions and sparse accounts, he knew that the Court used frigid temperatures to torture his ward. He believed the cold functioned as a punishment and means of storage for out of commission Talons. Something in Dick’s DNA changed the way he reacted to cold temperatures. When chilled, the boy suffered horrid flashbacks, but the worst reactions came from an intense cold. Dick’s body begins to shut down when he gets too cold too fast. The boy’s first  encounter  with Mr. Freeze had been terrifying; Robin had just dropped for no reason Batman,  Nightwing , or Bluejay could come up with. Keeping  Nightwing  from maiming Mr. Freeze after that particular incident presented had been equally challenging.

Dick also heated slower than he should, and it took near ten-minutes until Dick was able to speak again from the minor chill he experienced that Saturday night.

“Bruce?” Dick’s shivering cut up his word.

“Yes, Dick?” Bruce held the boy tighter to his chest to try to calm the shaking.

“Are you going to send me away like you did with Tim?”

Dammit. Bruce froze, his grip around Dick slackened, and Alfred watched on as pity crept through his heart.

“Why would you ask that?” Bruce tried to put the right emotions in his voice, tried not to shut down.

"I hurt people,” Dick said as though commenting on the Gotham Wildcats game last night. “I hurt a lot of people for no reason.”

Raining was something Dick didn’t talk about other than fevered mumbling after dissociation events or the clipped phrases that escaped the grasp of a flashback. Blood, gore, death, and not in that order. All the details  were scattered , but enough so Bruce could create a picture of what happened. Though faded and smudged, the image was horrific.

“You never wanted to hurt anyone, don’t forget that,” Bruce whispered into his son’s hair. He pulled Dick back against his chest, and he pushed away from the sounds of his second son’s manic laughter that turned into wails. Words like  _you’re safe_  and  _you’re not what they made you_  trickled out from his mouth. He closed his eyes and used years of visualization training to pretend that all his children were asleep in their rooms, ignorant to the way Gotham crumbled around them.

Dick didn’t say anything for the rest of the night, he barely moved. In fact, he was corpse-like in the way he laid there. He was regaining the heat that he had lost so fast too slowly. Maybe they dozed in the early hours of the morning. There were times when he could have sworn that Alfred had stuck his head in to check on them. He would have to insist Alfred take the day off, but he knew that Alfred never listened to him, probably for the best.

Life was peaceful in that transition state between reality and dreams. The place where life became hazy, and they didn’t have to feel scared.

Dick finally fell, truly asleep, again at ten in the morning. With his ward resting, Bruce was able to turn down the heat in the room from boiling to border-line uncomfortable. Winter always attacked them with brutal disregard for Dick’s trauma; nature’s reminder that Dick could never escape what mutations linger in his DNA.

The door opened not long after Dick had fallen asleep. No knocks. Damian. His eldest took in the sight of his resting brother and the smell of sweat in the room. Damian moved with the Flash’s speed to sit on the edge of Dick’s bed. When the boy stirred, Damian hushed him back to sleep.

Once sure that Dick was asleep, he pulled Bruce out into the hallways, geared up to deliver a lecture.

“What happened?” He couldn’t yell for the fear of waking up Dick encompassed him, but the years of living with Alfred taught him that he didn’t need to raise his voice to strike the fear of God into a man.

“I thought you weren’t coming home until the evening.” Bruce wasn’t trying to change the subject, not completely at least, but Damian coming home early without any warning was abnormal at best.

“I sent word to Pennyworth that my trip ended early a few hours ago. He never responded, but I can see why now.” Damian looked towards Dick’s room. “He hasn’t looked this bad since he remembered what happened to his parents.”

“The cold front caught us off guard.”

"Don’t treat me like a child, father. I know what a chill does to him, this is different.”

Cold flashes didn’t leave Dick unaware of his entry, not after having been warned. Sudden chill accompanied by previous emotional trauma could lead to such a reaction.

Bruce sighed, he knew there was no way to avoid Damian's questions. He had been trying to since his son was ten-years-old.

“We had a run in with the Red Hood and Joker,” Bruce told him every he knew about Dick’s nightmare and the  encounter . How the clown had found a way to get the upper hand on a half-trained Talon. “I don’t know what he said to Dick, but it was enough to distract him mind-battle and give him a  night  terror.”

“Did he have one last night?”

“I don’t know. He seemed better these past few days, but he could have repressed all that, and with the cold, he  was pushed  too far.”

Damian looked back towards Dick’s door and thought of the boy inside. When he slept, Damian could still see bright smiles with a gap between two front teeth, eyes too bright, and wild hand gestures. He could see tears from a burning temper and hear words that spilled from the mouth of a child not yet in control of his anger. Those memories dropped to his stomach like cement every time he woke up.

“We should cancel the Gala,” Damian said.

Bruce pinched that area on his nose that got the most abuse when he spoke to his children. “You don’t think I’ve thought of that? Dick doesn’t want to hide anymore.”

"The timing is less than ideal.” So close to the anniversary of Dick’s escapes, Damian couldn’t count all the reasons that what they were doing was a bad idea. “You’ve always believed that members of the Court were part of Gotham’s elite. What if they are in attendance? How do you plan to keep Richard safe if we are surrounded by an enemy we cannot  identify ?”

“We can’t lock him up forever, Damian. Eventually, he will have to go to school, make friends, be a kid again. He can’t do that in here.”

Damian knew that it was impossible to hide Dick from all the danger that would face him until the Court got dismantled. He knew that, but he also knew what the blood-stained halls of the Labyrinth looked like; hot they smell like piss and copper. Hell  was locked  below the streets of Gotham, and Damian would die before Dick ever went back there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cry about infinity war at dontfeedthebabytigers.com


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, my regular update is supposed to be tomorrow,, but I forgot so you get it a day early. In some personal writing news that deals with my original work, I've recently sent submitted my original work to literary magazines. I have yet to hear back, but I feel good about it.
> 
> Also, can you believe how beautiful Travis Moore's Dick Grayson in Nightwing vs Hush was? It's been a week and I'm still in love.
> 
> Last thing, I got into My Hero Academia with my roommate and I'm writing her a fic for her birthday for it so expect that soonish.

The Manor always felt different on the days Bruce Wayne hosted for the rich socialites of Gotham. Caterers and extra household staff buzzed about and made sure that every decoration and hors d'oeuvre is perfect. In short, the Manor was in a familiar state of chaos. Familiar for Damian, as he had lived through thousands of these ridiculous parties. But, for Dick, this level of chaos in the Manor felt brand new. Dick had always been sent to stay with Clark, the only person outside of the family he trusted, during the days leading up to Galas. Even before the Court, he had never experience a Gala as Bruce didn’t want his parent’s killer to know where he lived.

Two hours before the Gala, Damian searched the halls, weaving past workers vacuuming and dusting, for any sign of Dick. His brother was nowhere in the Batcave, and Damian doubted he was milling about with strangers--- even though he had personally vetted everyone in the building. So, Damian looked high and low for his little brother, and found him until he went to Dick’s room. Somehow that had been the last place Damian checked.

“Richard are you alright?” He asked his brother who stood in front of the mirror in a tuxedo. Make-up brought back the tan tone that he once had, blue-black veins made no longer visible.

Dick didn’t take his eyes away from his reflection. He started into fake blue eyes that covered the unnatural gold.

Damian knelt next to Dick and looked into the mirrors reflection. There weren’t many photos of Dick in the Manor from before. Only a few existed in Bruce’s office and Alfred’s scrapbook. The only reference for how Dick used to look that he saw on a regular basis came from his silhouette on the Flying Grayson poster that hung above his bed.

“Don’t tell Father that I was the one that told you this,” he gave Dick a wicked smile. “But, he also wears make-up for to these things.” On a good day, Damian would have gotten a smile that made his eyes twinkle. Not today. “You’re nervous?”

Dick nodded. He toyed with the blue and gold cufflinks on his sleeves.

“I will be at your side the whole night.”

“Stalker,” Dick muttered, a glint of mischief in his voice that had been missing for far too long.

“I’ll have to warn Todd that you’re in a joking mood tonight.” His curiosity spiked when Dick shook his head. “Or…”

“Whipped cream in his pockets?”

Alfred would lecture him for hours, and likely force Damian to take care of the dry cleaning for a year if he went through with Dick’s little prank. The things he let Dick pull him into just to keep that smile shining. A world where Dick couldn’t smile would be one that wasn’t worth saving. Even just a year ago, smiles where diamonds the family spent days mining for, and now smiling seemed almost effortless most days.

Those first days when Dick returned weren’t the hardest. Sure, his brother had been withdrawn, but he still had all the Talon training and drugs that made him subdued. Dick acted like moldable clay. He did what he any authority figure told him to without question. Everyday, they would remind him that he didn’t need to follow orders, that he was safe, that he was a person. Over time Dick would begin to remember what individuality entailed, and how the Court had destroyed him.

Then came the hard part. Dick remembered that he had a life before the Court. He couldn’t remember his parent’s names, or what his favorite color was, but he knew that those were things that he had. That’s all it took for Dick to fall apart. Nightmares anguished him every night, and the Manor had to remain at a temperature above eighty-five degrees. There were days where he would see something that reminded him of the Court which would lead him to curling in on himself and scream. Getting near Dick at those times were an impossibility and the first time Bruce got within five-feet of Dick he got a stolen steak knife thrown at him.

That and the anger. Dick had too many conflicting emotions at that time, and he lacked any means to communicate them. Violent outbursts led to most the vases and antiques in the Manor either having to be hidden away or replaced. He always apologized for his temper that scared even him, but he had no way to control himself. He didn’t need to police his emotions for almost two years.

Now, Dick conducted himself in a withdrawn, yet polite manner. Sometimes, like that night, Dick even enjoyed pulling pranks on his brothers. The stealth that he had been forced to learn Dick turned into a party gag with a smile on his face. Dick’s favorite thing to do with a Talon’s skills--- besides being Robin--- always would be doing anything that the Court would make the Court punish him. Damian rarely saw any trace that the boy who once been too terrified to stand next to an open window still existed.

“Richard, you have made tremendous progress these past few years.” Damian said, watching his brother for a reaction beyond added tension in his stance. “I never had the honor of meeting your parents, but I’m sure they would have shared in my pride.”

Dick’s focus turned to the Flying Graysons poster on the wall. He fiddled with the cufflinks on his hands.

Blue and gold. The last time Damian had seen Dick wear those colors he had been wailing in front of two mangled bodies. The screaming didn’t stop when his father scooped the child up and carried him far away from his parents remains. They tampered off by the time they brought Dick home, and they still made an appearance all these years later.

“Damian,” Dick’s voice caught Damian and pulled him from his thoughts.

“Yes, Richard?”

“I,” he stopped, looking as though he regretted that he spoke at all. “I don’t think I remember them enough.”

Damian repressed a sigh. He had feared his brother held some anxieties over his lack of memory surrounding his parents. “What do you remember?”

Dick looked focused as though he were trying to catch smoke in his hands. “Her smile, and sometimes he would sing a song.” He frowned. “I don’t remember its name, but I hum the tune sometimes.”

Damian never saw Dick humming but made note to keep an ear open. “That is enough. May I?” Damian motioned towards Dick’s bow tie that hung loose around his neck. When Dick nodded and moved so Damian began wrapping the silk in its complicated knot. “It’s been ten years since I’ve seen my mother--- three since I’ve forgotten the color of her eyes. But, forgetting her face does not stop the fact that she is my mother, for better or for worse. People are not their faces, Richard, and forgetting the crook of your mother’s nose does not lesson the bond you have with her.”

He finished with the bow tie, and Damian leaned back to admire his handiwork and give Dick time for a response. When it seemed like Dick didn’t want to, or didn’t know how, to respond, Damian moved on. “Would you like me to go over your interactions again?”

Dick shook his head, his hand going to touch the pocket Damian was certain held the notecards with salutations that Alfred had provided a few weeks prior. The butler’s hope being that if Dick rehearsed the lines enough, speaking to strangers wouldn’t be as frightening. Damian could tell Dick hated them just as he had, but for different reasons. Damian just had to learn lines to avoid offending a King or President.

“Very well,” Damian stood-up and brushed off his knees. “If you need me I’ll be debriefing security in the first-floor eastern sitting room.”

“Damian?” It sounded like a question, like maybe Dick wanted to ask him to stay. But, when Damian turned back, Dick met him with a crushing hug. For a moment, Damian felt startled, but he recovered and rested his arms around his brother’s shoulders.

The chill was one of the changes Damian could never familiarize himself with. Children always ran hot, and Dick had been a furnace with legs that would deal out surprise hugs by dropping on them from chandeliers and tall cabinets. The first time he had been dealt a surprise hug, Damian had almost thrown the boy off his shoulders in an act of self-defense. Dick’s manic giggling acted as the only thing that saved him from being thrown into the nearest wall. The second thing Damian had noticed was how warm Dick had been. He brought his brother straight to Alfred to get checked for the flu.

Talon’s hearts don’t beat, and with Dick’s talonization being incomplete, his heart beat fell considerably lower than the average persons. Bruce couldn’t figure out a way to reverse the process without causing major damage to Dick, so he remained the way the Court had made him. The physical warmth that once surrounded Damian would always be gone.

He never wanted these moments to end, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell Dick that. His silence only ensured their termination.

Stop. Damian’s eyes caught a glint of light from outside the window, deep in the trees. He parted from Dick and went over to inspect. His trained eyes combed over the entire forest that stood not far from Dick’s window. The setting sun put a pink tint over the trees that weren’t drowned in shadow. Damian opened the window and leaned out, a foolish idea if who he feared lurked out there decided to strike, but nothing happened. Nothing attempted to strike him down. Only a large hawk flew from the trees around where he had seen what looked like eyes.

“Is it him?” Dick asked, and, when Damian turned, he saw his brother had produced two knives.

Damian closed the window and pulled the curtains shut. “Just a bird.” He ruffled his brother’s hair. “I told you that you are safe here, and I meant it.”

Dick glanced down at the knives for a silent question. If he were safe, then why was he allowed to have knives on him when he would be around civilians tonight? Why did Alfred sew specials pouches into his suit just to hide them better?

“Being prepared for nothing is better than getting caught off guard.” Damian said. “That’s a lesson I learned from the Demon’s Head, and one I have to teach our security right now.”

“Don’t scare them too much.” Dick grinned as he put the knives away.

“Me? Scary? Ridiculous. I’ve been told that I’m charming for a man my age.”

“How old where you when someone told you that?” Dick asked. “Thirteen?”

There he is, Damian thought. “I can’t believe you would mock me, your brother, in such a way. We were the greatest team, you and I, but now I must find allegiance in Todd of all people.”

“You wouldn’t,” Dick said, that smile still hung on. “He wouldn’t take you.”

“Oh?” Damian snapped his fingers in a quick warning, or a chance to tell Damian not to overstep, before he scooped the kid up and held him under his arm. “Let’s go find Todd. See what he has to say.”

Caterers and household staff grinned to themselves in the midst of their preparations, for the first time in years laughter filled Wayne Manor’s halls.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the first time i've ever worked full time and wow i'm so tired. i mean i've been working for the past four years (don't get me wrong) but i never worked full time as a high schooler. is this what being an adult is? who knows maybe i'll figure that out when i finally turn twenty. we'll find out i guess.
> 
> anyways here's the update! now i'm going to maybe finish that my hero academia fic i should have had done weeks ago and order some dinner

They wanted Dick to say something, that he knew. He knew that along with how he knew the churning feeling in his gut came from the few hundred pairs of eyes that stared up at him.  His first greatest fear would always be William Cobb and the Court--- Jonathan Crane and his patchwork mask could never touch the nightmarish qualities of a white porcelain mask. Cobb always had that boogie man like standing in his head, but he started to realize that public speaking was right under that. There were just too many people, and did they all have to look at him?

“Dick,” Bruce had knelt down next to him. When had that happen? Whatever that barbed wire wrapped around the butterflies in his stomach feeling had made him less aware. Bruce spoke calmly though. He helped. “We’ll be right behind you.”

Dick nodded, must have, and took to the podium. A kick stool had been provided to compensate for his height, so he could at least see over the top. Blue notecards sat on top, his words written in Alfred’s curled handwriting.

His enhanced ears caught every word whispered between ruby red lips and fake teeth. He heard them ask why he wasn’t talking, heard them critique Bruce on bringing more trash from the streets in the baroque halls. Every dig against him pulled something old and buried within him. Had his blood been able to travel fast enough, Dick’s face would probably have been red faced. He would turn a violent shade of red that often stained the knuckles on his gauntlets.

He didn’t want to do this, but he needed to declare himself. Dick Grayson lived in the Wayne family, and he wanted to feel like Dick Grayson again.

“My name is---” Name? He blanked, the butterflies’ wings tore on sharp metal. What was Talon’s--- No. He wasn’t Talon. His name has always been Dick. Dick was all he’s ever been. “My name is Richard John Grayson. On behalf of my family, I would like to thank you all for coming.”

( _ Deep Breath) _ The cards said. The worst was yet to come, but he couldn’t see how events erased from mind qualified as worse.

“When I was five, my parents, the Flying Graysons, died. Mr. Wayne extended his generosity and took me in to his home away from the public eye.” Establish the lie. Create the story they’ll tell all their friends. “Two years ago, a party unknown took me in an attempt to extort Mr. Wayne.” Keep the lie close to the truth. “But, thanks to Batman, I escaped and can return home.”

The lie wasn’t good, but he fooled everyone that needed fooling. The socialites applauded his bravery and Bruce Wayne’s kind heart. Some even raised their champagne flutes to toast his safety. They would go back to hating him soon, but not until he turned away.

Commission Gordon stood out amongst the crowd. He gave Dick the same curt nod that Robin got whenever the boy wonder had done a commendable job taking down a rogue. Barbara stood at his side. She gave him a thumbs-up and a kind smile.

Mission accomplished.

Dick opened his mouth to continue his speech and announce the total earning for whichever charity they sponsored tonight, but Jason slid beside him. Dick startled.

“Let’s give it up for my Little Brother,” Jason held up a glass. Their guests followed in suit and cheered. It was loud, sudden, and led to people drinking--- drinking led to people being more open to unwanted physical contact—Dick grimaced. Behind the podium, Dick stomped down on Jason’s foot.

Jason put his hand over the microphone. “Play along,” he hissed with a smile on his face.

Turning back to the crowd, Jason gave them a smile that shined brighter than any Wayne family jewel. “Now, I know how you all are so excited to meet my baby brother, but it is way past his bedtime.” It wasn’t. Dick didn’t have a bedtime. But the groaning crowd didn’t know that. “I know, I know, but all the excitement wore the little tyke out. Have a great night everybody.”

Jason led Dick from the podium back to Bruce, Damian, and Cass who all stood at the back of the stage. No one looked thrilled about Jason’s surprise arrival, well, mostly Bruce didn’t look happy. Damian looked displeased, as always, and Cass, well, Dick could never read her.

“Jason,” Bruce scorned. “What are you doing?”

“Pulling him out. He looked miserable up there.”

Bruce pinched that area on his nose again. “Jay, how many times do I have to tell you. You can’t just assume what is best for Dick.”

Jason laughed and shifted back and forth like he wanted to land punch Bruce. Dick had observed that particular posture invades Jason’s usually calm demeanor whenever he fought with Bruce. “How come everyone can assume what’s best for Dick except for me?”

“I’m not assuming anything, Jason. He wanted to give the speech, and I agreed that public speaking would be good for him.”

“And you saw him floundering out there the same as I did. None of you helped him.” Jason pointed at them all. “I get you have a give a kid an escrima stick and through them in the deep end policy when it comes to childbearing, but you can’t through him in front of those sharks.”

“Jay---”

“No,” Jason’s fist curled around his glass. He’d crack the glass if he wasn’t careful. “You pushed him too far way too fast. I may be a shitty older brother, but even I can see that he doesn’t want to be here anymore.”

“Dick’s fine,” Bruce argued. “He would have told me if he wasn’t.”

“Yeah, because the Court always encouraged healthy communication.”

“Ask him.” Cass said, and all eyes swiveled to her and landed on Dick.

Damian knelt in front of Dick. “Richard, would you like to leave?”

Expectant, yet eerily passive, faces looked down at Dick. He didn’t know the right answer, couldn’t read anyone enough to figure out what they wanted from him. They did this sometimes when they didn’t want to persuade him to answer one way or another. It annoyed him endlessly. There were two options, a fifty-percent change that he would--- wait, crap, no. He doesn’t get punished for his decisions. Dick nodded, maybe he did just need to spend some time away from the party for the butterflies to free themselves from all that barbed wire. Yes, an hour, and then he’d be okay.

Bruce’s lip twitched down, and the uncertainty returned. He could make decisions, right? “Okay,” Bruce said. “You can go to bed. I’ll check on you in a few hours.”

“No,” Dick blurted out and froze. No wasn’t a word that Dick just said, but he did.

“It’s okay,” Jason said. He was smiling--- he probably didn’t know about the whipped cream in his suit pockets. “Bruce isn’t going to get mad at you, if he does, I’ll held you beat him up.”

Jason knew he couldn’t do that, but Dick always found him funny because he so casually brought up these taboos. He didn’t tip toe like the others. Dick missed jokes.

Bruce didn’t miss jokes; he shot Jason a look that told him as much. “Why don’t you want me to check on you?

“It’s your party.” He kept his eyes on the ground when Bruce sighed.

“Dick, I’ve had plenty parties, but I only have one of you.” A hand rested on Dick’s shoulder, but Dick didn’t look up. “Okay, how about I send Damian, and when the party's over I’ll come up. Is that alright?”

Dick nodded, and Bruce excused him from the party. The voices turned into murmurs as he traveled to the private end of the Manor. There were more security systems in this end and he felt safer immediately, but there was a prickling feeling still tingling at the back of his neck. It was almost as if---

“How sloppy.”

Dick pulled out the knife he had hidden up his jacket sleeve. He threw it at the voice. The knife imbedded itself into drywall, not the eye-socket of William Cobb like he had hoped. Two hands landed on his shoulders. Dick tried to spin around, but Cobb’s hands kept him still.

“Be still, Gray Son.” Cobb said and something inside Dick snapped shut. That voice, the order, the name, they all unlocked a part of himself that he had attempted to kill. Now, that part shoved any free will and locked it away in the closet. “The security here is laughable. I expected more from the Bat.”

Pushing past the conditioning was maddening. It took all his strength to muster three words. “I’m not going,” that was all he could manage.

Had Cobb wanted to force him to follow, he wouldn’t have been able to run away. There was a chance he could jump from a window and set off a perimeter alarm, but only if he were lucky. Death might come for him if he did that, and he had yet to discover if he had obtained immortality like Cobb. But death still remained the better alternative to following Cobb’s footsteps. He didn’t care what Bruce or Damian had told him; they didn’t know what being turned into a Talon felt like. The process was slow, sleep forfeited to allow more time for training, and nutrients were intravenous to re-enforce dependency. Dick would never become that dependent on the Court ever again. Not for an hour.

“Relax, you aren’t coming back to the Court. Not yet, but an update on you condition is required. I’m afraid that they’ll be disappointed.” Cobb moved so he would face Dick. His gold eyes were dead as they always had been. “So disappointing, you were born for better than entertainment for the rich, Gray Son.”

“No,” Dick pushed out. He had already said it once tonight, twice couldn’t hurt. Well, it could, but any defiance would heal that pain, even just a little.

Cobb smacked him--- no was a dangerous word. “’No?’ You know nothing of your purpose, your birthright. Perhaps it’s time you learned.”

Cobb walked down the hall and left Dick frozen behind him. “Your old circus trope is in town. Paying good ol’ Pop Haly a visit may prove profitable. You can move in three minutes to see for yourself, Gray Son.”

Haly’s Circus. He heard the name more than he remembered it. His old circus life became more of an aesthetic than a memory, a non-conceptual feeling that invoked thought of wind through his hair and a loving hand on his cheek. He had no memories of the Court connected to Haly’s Circus. Dick didn’t believe that they even spent more than a week at a time in Gotham. But Cobb didn’t lie to him, if Dick was sure about anything, it was that. He would see what Cobb meant, but he still had two-minutes and twenty-seven seconds to wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go
> 
> i'm bored so send me asks at dontfeedthebabytigers.tumblr.com


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a warning some violence does happen in this chapter, but its all pretty canon typical. Also, my my hero academia fic is out for anyone who wants to read it (and yes there are some really long comments from one person that's my roommate whom I wrote the fic for)

“In my pockets,” Jason yelled as he followed Damian through the halls on the way to Dick’s room, whipped cream in hand. “Do you have any idea how long this will take to get out? You two are going to have to get the stain out before Alfred can see.”

“If you think I’m going to do your laundry then you have even fewer brain cells than I thought.” Damian turned the corner to the hallway with all the bedrooms. 

Jason examined the ruined pockets of his second best sport coat. “Maybe I should just burn it, cut my losses. Alfred wouldn’t notice one lost suit, would he?”

His older brother smirked and knocked against Dick’s bedroom door. “If you have to ask, Pennyworth’s already won.”

Dick didn’t answer the door, so Damian opened the door himself. One look inside Dick’s room had Damian stopping in his tracks--- which only made Jason run into his older brother. Jason rubbed his pained nose; Damian was built like a brick wall.

“Hey,” Jason yelled, but around Damian’s shoulder he saw Dick’s empty room. “Fuck, will we have to find now?”

Damian only nodded, but when he looked back down the hall his eagle eyes spotted something. He walked over to a shining object embedded in the dry-wall. Dread infested the air when he watched as Damian slid the object from the wall. A Talon’s knife.

“Fuck.”

* * *

 

Batman and Nightwing rode in the Batmobile with Bluejay and Batgirl flanked either side on their motorcycles. They had searched all Dick’s usual hiding spots and all the safe houses set up around Gotham. Bluejay wasn’t even in the same car as Batman, yet he could feel the anxiety pouring from the Batmobile as it pushed going ninety-five through the streets of Gotham. There was only one place left to look, a recommendation from Batgirl, the fairgrounds.

He doubted Dick ran off or sought safety from the Court at his old circus. His younger brother never showed any interest in Haly’s Circus after he came back. Whatever he did remember Dick kept to himself. Maybe things changed, its been weeks since Jason actually spoke to Dick. 

That thought only made Bluejay drive faster. The circus came into view.

“Be on the lookout,” Batman said over the intercom. “The Court will have the circus under heavy surveillance.” 

“Why?” Bluejay asked. ‘What’s the reason behind doing that?”

“For once,” Nightwing sneered. “I am as confused as Bluejay.”

Silence over the comms, but the certain flavor of silence only meant one thing. Batman had information that he should have told them, but he didn’t. Moments like these, when shit goes topsy-turvy when it didn’t need to, Bluejay remembered why he spent most his time in Jump.

“Now would be a feat time to share, Bats.” Jason’s voice had a hard edge to it. “While we still have some chance at brining Robin back.”He heard Batman weigh out his options, even when Batgirl spoke. “Haly’s Circus works for the Court.”

“You knew about this?” Damian accused his father with a hate in his voice they hadn’t heard in years. 

“There was some evidence that William Cobb had made a deal with the original circus owner.” He spoke without emotion, or, at least, he masked everything he did feel. “I didn’t want anyone to know until we had more evidence.”

“Who’s we?” Bluejay asked. “Because I feel like I would have remembered if you clued me in on any of this.” He looked over to Batgirl who kept her eyes on the road. “Oh, so I’m guessing there wasn’t actually any urgent business across years these past few years. How typical---”

“Enough,” surprisingly Nightwing said. “Robin is top priority, and I won’t listen to any arguments until he’s safe. We’ll continue this when he’s safe.”

“And if they already have him?”

“They don’t.” Nightwing snapped at Jason, but there was a coldness to his voice. Jason only heard it once before--- the last time Damian found his little brother’s room empty with the window open.

* * *

 

They found Dick sat alone in the center ring with his back towards the entrance. The spotlight left Dick, still dressed in his suit, illuminated in a ring of white light surrounded by inky darkness. He held something in his lap, but with Bluejay’s angle he couldn’t see what.

“That’s not creepy at all.” He whispered only for Nightwing to smack him on the head. “What? I’m right.”

“You knew.” Dick said without looking back. He barely spoke louder than Jason had, yet his voice filled the big top. “You lied.”

Batman took slow steps forward. “I didn’t want you to have any reason to doubt them if I were wrong.”

Dick turned around. Silver lines dripped down his cheeks. Bluejay could see the knife in his hand. “You lied. I was supposed to trust you. We were supposed to be partners, but he told me. Not you. Him.”

Nightwing spoke gently. “You’re talking about Cobb.”

Dick looked back to the knife. “He was at the party. He ordered me to get answers, so I did.”

He threw the knife to his side and cut a rope that dropped Mr. Haly from the trapeze above. The old man fell until the rope grew taut again a few inches from the ground. His face looked red and he hung by his feet. Dick also placed a gag in his mouth before they arrived, and he yanked it out.

“Tell them.” Dick never yelled, but when he produced another knife he may as well have shouted.

“It’s not my fault--- ah!” A knife cut flew pass him and left a cut across his cheek. “Shit!”

“Richard, stop.” Damian yelled, and Bluejay doesn’t think he had ever heard Damian give Dick an order before. If only Dick listened.

“Tell them.” The ice in Dick’s voice reminded Jason of when Mr. Freeze locked him in a walk-in freezer for three hours before Batman found him.

Haly looked a Batman for help, but Batman wasn’t in charge of the situation. All he could do was nod and tell Haly to go ahead and speak.

“Alright,” Haly said in utter resignation. “Every few generations the Court adds a new Talon into their ranks. The Court got to William Cobb decades ago. He used to be a trapeze artist with the circus. He did well in the Court, exactly what was asked of him. One day, he shows up to the circus, my dad hadn’t seen him since Cobb was a kid. They struck a deal that the next time the Court needed a Talon the circus would provide.

A batarang but the rope that held Haly up causing him to crash to the ground. Batman grabbed him by the collar and pulled Haly to his feet. Their faces were only inches apart.

“He’s a child.” Batman growled.

Haly looked to the former Robins. “You’re one to talk. “

Batman dropped the old man to the ground. “Don’t even try, Haly. You and I are not the same.”

“No?” Haly rubbed his throat. “You’re right. The soldiers I create live forever, and you’ve had some trouble with that recently. Haven’t’ you?”

Batman growled, geared up to punch Haly, but Batgirl caught his arm. “Control yourself.” She said then turned to Haly. “Why Dick?”

The old man paled and turned to Dick. “You should know that your parents had no idea.”

Dick nodded, another tear slipped from his fake blue eyes.

“Damian saw that and lost his own self-control. “What are you saying?”

“Cobb and Richard are related. Its always been his legacy to become a Talon, what he was born to do.”

All eyes fell on Dick, a child born to kill, with a knife in his hand and hatred in his eyes.

“Richard,” Damian said, moving to put himself in front of Haly. He moved slow to avoid startling him. “Put the knife down. He isn’t worth killing.”

“He helped kill them, my parents.” Dick was near hysterics--- over his shoulder, Jason motion he would cover Dick from behind. “The Court couldn’t just have me disappear, so he got Zucco to kill them. He told the Court where I lived.” His grip on the knife tightened. “He should see what he killed my parent’s for, what he ruined me for.”

“Richard, look at me.” Nightwing tore off his mask and kneeled down, hands out. “I know how it feels to have a legacy you don’t want, but a legacy doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to. That’s your decision. Right now, you get to choose. Do you become what he created, or do you put justice before vengeance?”

Dick looked at Haly for a long time. This had been the closest Dick ever got to confronting his abusers, and he must have itched for blood. But all around him stood his family. They wanted to help. Dick screamed and threw the knife.

Nightwing shouted as Bluejay grabbed Dick groom behind. But the knife embedded in the ground between Haly’s legs. Dick didn’t aim to kill.

“I hate you!” Dick shouted and cried without trying to free himself from Bluejay’s grasp--- which was lucky for Bluejay who didn’t want to get thrown down by Dick. Holding onto that kid was harder than holding water.

“Batman’s shadow fell over Haly. His tone sounded calm, but underneath that calm a fire burned and crackled. “You’re going to tell me everything you know about Cobb and the Court, and only then will you get to spend your life in Blackgate.”

“No,” Haly hugged in the effort it took to stand; his back touching the darkness that escaped the spotlight. “I won’t. Dickie,” he said to the boy that paused in cursing Haly’s very existence. “I don’t blame you for what’s about to happen. Remember that I love you like you’re my own.”

Mr. Haly jerked and clutched his chest before he fell to the ground. Out from the shadow came William Cobb with Haly’s sputtering heart in his hand. He threw it on the ground in front of Dick. 

“You aren’t ready, maybe next time.”

Batman lunged to grab Cobb but fell to the ground empty handed. He had already disappeared.

Dick broke free from Bluejay’s shock weakened hold to run over and kneel at Mr. Haly’s side. He looked like he wanted to punch the man and lay flowers at his grave. Torn straight down the middle, all Dick could do was wail on his knees in Haly’s Circus like he had a lifetime ago. Only now, no one had the strength to pull him away.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so i'm a bit over a week late but that's because I forgot and is that my fault? Yes. But is it really? Absolutely. Yeah, I went on vacation last Thursday and forgot to type it up and left my laptop at home so there went that. But here we are, chapter 12 only a bit late.

The Labyrinth birthed death and raised torture. Dick knew this when he wondered through the different passage ways. He gave up running to speed up his escape hours ago when he noticed the how the walls moved around him. Visibility had been reduced to five-feet in all directions around Dick. He had been dressed back in the old training uniform he bled in and the muzzle that made every breath a struggle. No one would come to save him here, that Dick knew, because no one had the last time. That didn’t mean they weren’t looking, but that crucial detail kept getting harder and harder to remember.

“It’s because you are learning, Gray Son.” No, not again. Cobb’s voice came from within him; Dick heard it inside his mind.

“Get out.” Dick hit his hands against both temples to rid himself of that low and smooth voice. It never worked.

“’Remember, I love you like you’re my own.’ Those were Haly’s last words, but do you know who else could have said them before choking on their blood?”

Bruce appeared, knelt before him. “Remember,” he said, a soft smile on his face. “I love you like you’re my own.”

Bruce’s form shook just like Haly’s. Blood slipped from the corner of his mouth and he listed to the side, falling to the ground. A hole in his back stared up at Dick, and in Dick’s hand, a severed heartbeat. Dick dropped the heart on the dust covered ground and tried to move away, but Cobb stood behind him. Hands dropped on his shoulders and forced him to observe his father’s corpse.

“You believe family can save you, and you’re right.” Cobb whispered in his ear. “But family will also destroy you, Gray Son. Unless we can destroy it first.”

* * *

“Richard,” Nightwing snapped his fingers inches from his brothers lost eyes. “Can you hear me? Focus on my voice.” He took off his domino mask. “Look at me, Richard.”

“Any luck?” Bluejay asked from somewhere behind him.

Damian didn’t answer. What could he say other than a line of obscenities directed towards, the man who had forced his little brother back into this state. Dissociative phases were supposed to have been locked in Dick’s past, a relic behind bulletproof glass. When Dick lost himself in those episodes it took between a few minutes to hours to pulls him out.

He couldn’t think about that, the step back, at that time. All Damian could do was get him away from Haly’s body. Dick never became violent in the state he was in, so Damian picked him up and settled Dick’s weight on his hip; Dick’s head rested against his shoulder.

“Where is Father?”

“Talking to Batgirl outside,” Bluejay pointed over his shoulder. “They tracked Cobb until he got to the waterside. He disappeared after that.”

Not surprising, Talons always got away every time they got close. It was needlessly frustrating.

Damian then noticed Bluejay holding an evidence bag in his hand. “You found something in Haly’s trailer?”

“Yeah,” he opened the black plastic bag and looked inside before he glanced over to Dick. “Maybe we should do this in front of him.”

Damian looked down to Dick who stared ahead at some unseen nightmare. Gently, he moved Dick’s head, so his gaze pointed towards his neck. They had never confirmed if Dick could still process anything he saw in this state, and Damian didn’t feel like risking it today. “He’ll be fine, just make sure he doesn’t see anything.”

Bluejay nodded and pulled a white porcelain owl mask from the bag. “I found this and some freaky robe in a locked trunk under the bed. Looks like they haven’t been touched in years.”

“How tacky,” Damian’s nose scrunched up.

“Cultists never did have the best fashion sense.” Bluejay put the mask back in the bag then pulled out two smaller clear bags that held a signet ring and a gold pin with an owl head on the end. “Now these I found inside a vent behind a dresser that was nailed to the ground.”

Damian grabbed the baggie and held them up to the light. “That’s a lot of trouble from an old man to go through only to leave his mask under the bed.”

Bluejay had thought the same thing. “The vent was pretty small, maybe he just couldn’t fit the mask in there?”

“Maybe,” Damian handed back the baggies. “Or you put more care in hiding the key than the costume. Look at the ring.”

Bluejay thumbed over the unusually high bumps and groves. “You think this unlocks something?”

“That, or it’s needed for admission.”

“Now, if only we knew where the club was.” Bluejay put the evidence away.

“The Court can’t hide from us forever, and they know that. Cobb played a card tonight, and tomorrow, or the next day, they’ll show another. Soon, we’ll know every card in their hand.”

“Good,” Bluejay left for the exit. “Because they already know all of ours.”

* * *

 

The Labyrinth perfected torture and made its business in misery. Time could not be measured within its walls, so Dick had no idea how long he spent involuntarily ripping the hearts from each of his family members. Their blood soaked the knees of his uniform and his right arm was covered in red. Over and over, Dick whispered his apologies. Though none of his family could hear him.

“This is what freedom feels like.” That snake whispered.

“No,” it’s all Dick can say.

“All you’re feeling right now is the fear. Push a bird from its nest for the first time, and you’ll see the same fear in its eyes that I see in yours right now. Do you know what comes from that fear when wings feel the wind for the first time?”

A tear slipped from Dick’s eye. “Stop.”

“It’s time to fall, Gray Son.”

* * *

 

Damian carried Dick out to where Batman and Batgirl talked near the Batmobile. There had been many times, an uncountable amount of times, when Damian felt uncontrollable anger towards his father. As a child, Damian never had someone in his life to show him how to work through the boiling temper. That side of him never disappeared, calmed with age maybe, but he didn’t actively try and change his attitude until Dick came into their lives. He had, of course, resisted his newest sibling at first. There was just an infectious happiness in Dick that Damian couldn’t escape and wanted to help maintain. Still, there were moments when Bruce blindsided Damian with just how frustrated he can make his son.

“You have one minute to explain,” Damian held Dick closer. “Go.”

The lens in cowl didn’t give away where Batman looked, but Damian knew. “Is he okay?”

“He’ll be fine.” Damian stated. “Fifty-seconds.”

Batman pulled the cowl down and ran his hand threw his hair. “Cass has investigated the Court on my orders over the past year. A week ago, she found a photo that connected Cobb to Haly’s father. I didn’t tell any of you because it may have not led anywhere, and I couldn’t find a reason for Dick to have that paranoia lingering over his childhood. Once I had solid evidence I would have told all of you.”

“You should have told all of us from the beginning.” Bluejay beat Damian to the punch. Anger lived in his eyes. “God, you never change. Do you? We’re a team, so we all have to know everything if there’s going to be any chance at us stopping the Court.”

“I didn’t anyone telling Dick.”

“As a kid, did you somehow miss learning the word trust?” Bluejay asked. “At this point I can’t think of any other reason why you would keep making these stupid mistakes over and over again.”

Bluejay walked over to his bike and revved the engine. “I can’t even blame batgirl because I know how hard it is going against the Batman. But I can’t say it’s ever been something I regretted doing.”

Bluejay sped away, only a puff of dust and the lingering tension from his words remained.

“Damian,” Bruce tried.

“Don’t.” He walked over to the Batmobile, set Dick down in the passenger seat, and buckled him in. “I’m far to familiar with your particular brand of paranoia to feel anything like surprise or betrayal.” He walked over to the driver’s side but paused at the door. “However, the next time you withhold information and Richard goes into a situation blind--- I don’t care if he’s more comfortable at the Manor---- I will take him out of your care.”

Damian got in the car and pulled up next to Bruce with the window down. “I trust you can find a way home.”

The Batmobile screeched way and Damian watched his father turn into little more than a speck in the review mirror.

* * *

 

The Labyrinth monetized misery and used the money to create monsters. Dick knew the Court turned him into a beast--- a creature made to lurk in the night. How could he not have been a monster? A murderer covered in blood like him must have been one.

Dick took the cape from his dead father’s corpse and laid it over the bodies of his family all lined up in a row.

He stood up and looked over the bodies William Cobb conditioned him to create.

His couldn’t let this happen again.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ok, a few things
> 
> First, I won't be updating in two weeks because I'll be moving back to school and I don't want to have the stress of uploading and moving with my father because spending the day with him is stressful enough. So chapter 14 will come out September 13th.
> 
> Second, a quick book reccomendation. If you have seen the show Queer Eye you may remember the shirt that Antoni wore in the season 1 finale with all these different names on it. That shirt is a reference to the book A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara and it is AMAZING! It is extremely sad and deals with difficult subjects such as self-harm and possibly a suicide attempt (it's a bit vauge) But it's a remarkable book with a diverse cast of characters.

Bruce found Dick and Damian in the den as they watched some inane movie filled with color and movement. His youngest laid swaddled in large and fluffy blankets; his head leaned against Damian while his brother held him close. Turning around seemed like the best option, but Bruce’s best, and worst, quality always was his inability to walk away from difficult situations.

He cleared his through, but his children didn’t bother turn around and look at him. They knew he arrived in the room the moment his oxfords crossed the threshold. “Damian---”

“No,”

Any questions about if Damian forgave him for keeping secrets was an emphatic no. Bruce didn’t expect much more. “I need to talk to Dick alone.”

“You had plenty of opportunities to speak with him.”

Damian’s grip tightened around his little brother. Bruce’s eldest vicious protective attitude towards Dick often helped Bruce sleep better at night. To know that over the three hours he slept that Damian kept watch over Dick brought him some level of peace. Only now Bruce saw the bitter and cold side of his protective instinct.

“I’m trying to explain myself, Damian.”

“Then start talking, but I’m staying right here.” Damian pulled Dick even closer to him.

Bruce saw the sleeve on Damian’s shirt tug downwards a few times and a small slip of paper passed up from a hand hidden in thick blankets. Damian read the note and huffed when he stood up.

“You have ten minutes. I’ll be outside.” Never far away, yet Damian still claimed to not care about anything.

Bruce rounded the sofa’ he approached the mass of blankets with great care. The blankets didn’t twitch at his approach, but he knew the boy underneath must be riddled with tension, listening to his every move. Dick’s special awareness rivalled the bats that lived below their feet. Bruce had yet to sneak up on a child almost thirty-years younger than him.

“Can I sit?” Always best to ask. The blankets didn’t answer, so Bruce took Damian’s old spot--- careful to leave space between Dick and himself. “I think I owe you an explanation.”

Silence. Bruce continued on. “The Court left you so little, and even though you said you couldn’t remember the Circus, I know you still find peace in the memories. And that even without any evidence beyond the photo suspicion would destroy that memory.”

A note pushed through all the fabric. You don’t trust me, it said. We’re supposed to be partners.

“Oh, Dickie,” He rested his hand on the edge of Dick’s blanket--- close enough for Dick to feel but without invading his space. “Of course, I trust you. I’ve always trusted you.”

Another note. He told me. Not you. That note Bruce crumpled in his fist.

“Cobb doesn’t trust you, or care. He only told you to hurt you and make you doubt yourself. I tried to do the opposite, but I still messed it up. You can blame me, hate me if you want just so long as you know all Cobb has done is lie to you and abuse you.” He took a breath, calmed himself. “I trust you, Dick. You’re my Robin.”

Nothing. Dick didn’t say anything. He didn’t pass a note written with carefully constructed letters. Under the blankets his body curled further in on itself and away from Bruce. Dick pulled the blankets until Bruce could see how his knees pressed into his chest. He saw the death grip Dick had on the soft material. The nightmares would come worse tonight than they had in months.

Last chance. “There’s someone who wants to meet you.”

Hesitance, then the blanket eases up for the time it takes to write a single worded question. Doctors?

Bruce’s heart clenches in his chest. The last time Dick had fallen into a dissociative phase Bruce and Damian had rushed him to Dr. Thompson and then--- when she couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him--- they brought him to the Watchtower. When Dick woke up from his state he had to endure prodding from Doctor Midnight and Martian Manhunter--- along with a secondary examination for a concerned Lee Thompson--- and he felt miserable. “No, there’s no doctors this time. He’s a few years older than you but considering the last few times I saw him you could never tell.”

Who?

“His name is Wally West. He’s the Flash’s nephew and he’s about to become the youngest member of Damian’s team. I met with him to assess his skill level and he expressed the utter joy he would have in meeting the current Boy Wonder.” Here goes nothing. “If you’re up for it, I could set up a meeting soon as Saturday.”

Dick’s head popped up from the blanket, the spark in his eyes had come back. He shoved a note in Bruce’s face. Really? The note said. But he’s a speedster, right?

Bruce couldn’t help but laugh--- apparently, he hadn’t been subtle with annoyance towards speedsters like he thought he had been. “I’m sure I can live with one speedster under my roof for a few hours. We’ll have to see about anything long than that to make sure my head doesn’t explode. I don’t think Alfred would appreciate that cleaning my brains off the celling.”

That got a quick smile from Dick, but it faded quickly to only get replaced with a new note. Can I tell him?

“Only if your wat to, but you have to know for certain. There’s no rush in meet with him. Wally doesn’t even know this is happening.”

He nods. Last time Dick made this decision to tell someone about what happened to him--- when he had told Barbara--- he had night terrors for days and spent most of his time secluded in the Batcave’s robin nest. Bruce had to hope if he told Wally that the result wouldn’t traumatize him as much this time.

Dick passed a new note. What’s his hero name?

“Kid Flash.” Bruce couldn’t help but chuckle at Dick’s unimpressed look. “What? You don’t want the criminals of Gotham to call you Kid Bat?”

Dick scrunched up his nose and shook his head.

“I kind of like the sound of it. What do you think, Kid Bat?”

His ward shoved him playfully, a smile stuck on his face now.

“Are we okay?” Bruce asked--- he hated himself for a causing the smile to slip away again. “I know how bad I messed up--- and I can’t promise that I won’t make more mistakes in the future--- but I can promise that I’ll always try. All I ask in return is doesn’t let what you learned yesterday keep you down. Your parents loved you Dick, and all they would want from you is to be a kid again. That’s something I have in common with them.”

A sudden weight crashed against Bruce’s chest. Dick’s head buried against his chest--- arms locked around his waist, so sudden he could barely remember to return the hug. Bruce ran a hand through Dick’s hair and wished there moments weren’t so rare.

“I don’t remember them.” Dick whispered--- voice rough. “But I still miss them.”

Bruce’s shirt got wet. “I don’t really remember my parents either. But I still miss them every day.”

They stayed together on the couch--- all while pretending not to notice the other tears. Soon, Dick fell asleep in the safety of his guardian’s arms. Bruce closed his eyes and tried to remember the night Dick came to live with them--- dressed in Damian’s childhood clothes that hung off his body. That night Bruce told story after story about his parents. Everything he could remember until Dick shared his own.

Damian didn’t come back into the room until the clock struck midnight. His stealth improved everyday--- Bruce hadn’t even noticed his son until Damian leaned against the wall to better glare at him.

“You don’t deserve this,” Damian said, nodding at Dick curled against him. “Not this soon.”

Bruce pushed Dick’s bangs back. “I don’t. I know that I won’t be getting back into your good graces anytime soon either. It’s only plain luck that kept you both in my life tonight.”

Damian regarded him for a time. He chuckled and sat in the arm chair to Bruce’s right. “No one that’s lived under this roof could call themselves lucky in good conscience. These halls don’t know the meaning of that word.”

“Maybe not, but you’re both, here aren’t you?” A melancholy smile. “I can’t say that about all my children.”

“You can’t,” blunt as ever. “But the fact that you can say you have two isn’t controlled by luck. It’s controlled by you.” Damian stood up. “I know it’s pointless to tell you not to keep secrets from us again. Just improve your judgement for what should qualify as secret worthy. I meant it when I said that I would take Dick away from you.”

Bruce knew that Damian didn’t say things he didn’t mean. But above the fear that he could one day not hold his children this close there was something else. “You’ve grown so much since you first came here. I’m proud of you, Damian.”

Damian nodded before he left the room, as formal as he was at the age of ten.

* * *

 

“What’s that sound?”

“It’s the robins. Today’s the first day of spring.”

“I don’t see how the season has anything to do with the twittering of birds.”

“It’s about rebirth, Damian.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will one day.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! And so is a character quite a few people have been anticipating the return of for a while. For some quick updates: I for some reason started a My Hero Academia Tododeku fic that started off as a quick idea and is now a 13k monster that isn't close to being halfway done. So, if that's something you're interested in you can read it when I'm done. 
> 
> It's probably one of my favorite fics I've written. I'm also going to put the Spotify playlist I listen to when writing this in the end notes so if you want to listen to that go ahead. It's quite long and good ambient background music.

He grew up on the rolling hills that bury Gotham; he used to find the city beautiful when he looked at its twinkling lights from his bedroom window. When he had been no older than five the truth about the city he once thought shone brighter than the Zeppelin’s spotlights that combed over the Narrows. He saw the crime that didn’t just run threw Gotham’s veins, but kept the city together. People died everyday under those spotlights in a city filled with more criminals than cops, and that went double for the clean cops. Then he discovered Batman and Robin and their mission to remind everyone what justice meant. He thought it would be the end of crime in Gotham, but no, crime went on. All signs pointed to the vigilantes being Bruce and Damian Wayne--- he knew that before he turned eight and still kicked himself for not discovering what seemed so obvious earlier. Hell, he lived next door to them all his life and it still took him almost two years to figure it out. He thought himself a genius back then, but he was still stupid enough to confront Bruce Wayne face to face--- not to mention trying again after every time Bruce turned him around. Eventually, he convinced Bruce that just because one Robin was on the way that he shouldn’t stop having a partner. 

Look how that turned out.

Seven years later, Tim took on the mantel of Red Hood from a deranged clown. He lived in the abandoned Drake Manor because Bruce’s guilt complex would never allow him to step foot on the grounds. Time basked in his solitude, conducted himself in the most efficient manner possible. In the morning, he made himself coffee on his single burner and ate a granola bar for energy. The rest of his daylight hours were spent compiling any evidence he could against the crimes committed by Gotham’s elite. The corporations that led to the deaths of thousands through malpractice and neglect were his largest targets. It was hard work that would have been a hell of a lot easier a few years ago, but slow progress was still progress. Once the sun set and he couldn’t risk any light from his computers shining out the windows, the Red Hood took to the streets. That, being the Red Hood, was the easy part. He let out a few drops of the anger that threatened to spill over the edge, unleash the pain on people he felt deserved to carry it.

If only pain could work on rich people like Jared Brand the same way it worked on the murderers and abusers he took out. But no, only martyrdom would fall on Brand if he were found dead in the morning. His company would continue on without fear. Tim needed to expose their crimes and then show others what would happen if they followed in Brand’s footsteps. The plan had faults. Greed would always be the wild card, but he couldn’t do nothing. He had to stop the people Batman didn’t touch. He had to do it in the way Bruce feared.

That night Tim found himself sat upon a tenth story window sill of an abandoned apartment building watching a Brand Pharmaceuticals representative overstock a local pharmacy with every opioid imaginable. He witnessed three of these shipments before and saved a handful of victims from overdosing from being overprescribed. Tim still lacked the evidence to show that Brand knew that these shipments were happening, but that had to wait until morning. Right now, Tim just needed a window to jump in and stop the shipment without hurting the driver or the store’s stock boy. They were just low wage workers without the medical knowledge to see that this many opioid pills were far too many. They didn’t know that they were committing a crime, so he had no reason to hurt them. Tim actually preferred the idea of getting in and out without them knowing he arrived at all.

However, they appeared to have started a lengthy conversation which meant Time had to get comfortable and wait them out. He even almost fell asleep until a light tap on the window leading to what was supposed to be an abandoned apartment made him jump right out of his hiding place. Only years of training kept Tim from shouting, but years of instinct had him pointing a gun at an unimpressed Robin.

Fuck, how the kid even found him without the Bat or Nightwing on his tail was beyond him. Tim could have sworn that they kept the kid on lockdown.

Tim put the gun away and sighed as he pushed up the window. “The hell are you doing alone out here?”

Dick signed an answer, but Tim wasn’t as good at ASL as other members of Dick’s family.

“I got every other word of that. Do you have any paper you could write on?”

The kid sighed, took a breath, and spoke. “No, it’s okay.”

It was the first time Tim had heard Dick speak in four years, He barely recognized the soft voice and hesitant words that came from the kids mouth. Time could still remember the mornings Dick’s happy chatter filled the halls and woke him from what little sleep he had gotten the night before. There were often days when Dick would destroy any chance of focusing on homework or case files with the need to conversate. Tim didn’t even need to speak; Dick would have carried the entire conversation for hours. Having him around during the days Tim couldn’t bring himself to say a word had been nice.

This wasn’t the same Dick Grayson, and he wasn’t the same Tim Drake.

“What are you doing here?”

Without warning, Dick joined him on the window sill--- Tim was just happy the kid wasn’t built like Damian had been as a child or there wouldn’t have been room. Not that Damian had been overly muscular, but most children were larger than Dick even at eleven.

Tim waited for Dick to answer him, but it became clear that wasn’t going to happen. “I take it things aren’t going well in paradise.” Still no response. “I’m not surprised. The Bat’s never been the easiest to get along with.”

“It’s his brand.” A smile slipped over Dick’s face like water.

“There he is.” Time nudged the kid and the smile came back for a second. “Seriously, what are you doing out here alone?”

Dick shrugged. It looked like he wasn’t going to say anything, and Tim was about to give in when, “I wanted to see you.”

Dumbfounded, Tim could only stutter out his response. “What? Me?”

“Why not?” His body curled in on himself like an accordion. “You’re my brother. I miss you.”

Crap. “None of them have any idea you left I’m guessing.”

All he did was shrug again. Damian was going to kill him. He stood up and pulled out his grapple. “Come one, we need to get you home before Nightwing skins me.”

Dick didn’t move.

“Did you hear me?”

Dick nodded.

“Okay, then let’s go.” Nothing. Tim sat down again. “Why are you really here, Dick? It has to be important right?”

A tear slipped from Dick’s eye and Tim froze. “I’m sorry.”

“Wait. What? Why are you sorry?”

“Babs told me.” Dick had trouble speaking through his tears. “Joker hurt you. I couldn’t save you.” He sobbed. “I’m sorry.”

What the fuck. “Dick, you don’t need to apologize.”

“But I didn’t---”

“Neither did I.” They both stopped breathing for a moment. Gotham was unnaturally quite tonight. “I couldn’t save you from the Court. We’re even.”

“Even?” Dick sounded unsure.

“Sure,” Tim deflated, his head leaned against the window pane. “Why not?”

Except that they weren’t even. Dick had the excuse of being kidnapped, but Tim couldn’t make those excuses. He had a function brain for most of that time until, well, the human body can’t take over point-one amps of electricity before dying, but .08 over the course of a few months would stop just short of death while leaving room for all sorts of side-effects. Tim’s lucky that he can function at all. But being Jokerized for a few days wasn’t like what being turned into a Talon must feel like. Dick’s makeup job wasn’t as extensive as the last time Tim saw him. Dick’s hands and neck were pale with black and navy veins. When Tim had been made to look like the Joker it had just been face paint. Tim couldn’t imagine the pain of having to see the creature that mad man turned him into every day.

“Tim?” Dick whispered, somehow curling tighter in on himself. “Do you think you can ever come home?”

He had never even thought about going back to Wayne Manor. Picturing himself, as he was at that moment, looking up at the Wayne Family Portrait seemed impossible. “I don’t think that I’m wanted.” He paused, something like nostalgia passed over him. “Maybe one day.”

That answer seemed to work for Dick, or he didn’t feel like talking anymore. Either way, Tim didn’t want to stay on the subject and let the silence fall. A headache began to come on and he didn’t have his migraine medication on him tonight, so he felt it best to try and keep himself from getting overly emotional.

“What are you doing?” Dick pointed at the scene below.

That was something Tim could talk about. “Stopping a bad drug shipment and ruining a billionaire’s day amongst other things.”

He nodded. “Can I help?”

Tim almost burst out laughing. Dick still remained the same crazy kid he knew all those years ago. “No, absolutely not. The last thing I need is news that the Red Hood and Robin were seen together.”

The kid even had the audacity to pout.

“Cry all you want, but I’m not changing my mind. You may as well go home before anyone notices you left.”

A nod and Dick stood up. He followed order and took out his grapple gun, but a stubborn hesitance made a once graceful movement stiff.

“Hey,” Tim said before Dick shot off into the night. “You don’t always have to do what Bruce, or any of them say. Rebellion looks good on you.”

The smile didn’t fade that time and Dick flew off into Gotham’s oppressive night. An engine revved and broke through the silence, and Tim turned to see delivery truck drive away.

“Finally.” Tim said as he shot off his own grapple gun and swung down to the street below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> talk to me at dontfeedthebabytigers.tumblr.com 
> 
> this fic's spotify playlist https://open.spotify.com/user/12bi2vdo1y7khazxolv5m4en0/playlist/4xqLllv0cdJm4KNjmbka6v?si=uZnm0VqJTnO-VaBKOjn1Qg


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Another new chapter with another anticipated character

Dick had known Wally for all of ten minutes and already neared answering his hundredth question.

Wally had already asked about almost every portrait and antique they passed by on Dick’s tour of the Manor. Then there were the Batman and Robin questions: Where’s the Batcave? Why is it called the Batcave? Why is the Robin costume red, yellow and green? Do the ears on Batman’s cowl come off to be used as projectiles? Answering Wally’s questions proved a difficult, almost impossible task. But talking to Wally felt easy somehow. Wally could hold most conversation on his own, just needing a starting point from Dick, and he didn’t seem to expect much more than a simple answer from him either.

“Dick you grow up here? Who’s the old guy? Is he your butler? Do you _have_ a butler? How rich is Bruce Wayne? Does he sleep upside down like a bat? No, that’s ridiculous, but does he?”

Dick would have lied if he said that he wasn’t feeling strung out. He wanted friends, wanted to make the effort it took to maintain them, but he couldn’t deny that he was looking for an easy out from Wally’s line of fire. He searched his brain for a way to subtly force Wally to leave so he could hide away where no one could talk to him and he could revel in his failure.

“Are you okay, man? You’re spacing out on me.” Wally asked, and he felt the panic build. However, his panic was quickly replaced with confusion when Wally pulled what looked like one of Jason’s video games from his backpack. “Here’s an idea: I heard Nightwing, I mean, Damian complaining about RR keeping him up playing Call of Duty when they were younger, and I thought we could play this is we got the chance. Have you heard of Portal 2?”

Dick shook his head, and for some odd reason that only made Wally smile wider.

“Awesome, you are going to love this. It’s basically a puzzle/ strategy game. We can start with the co-op or on story mode— I’ve already played story mode, so you could take the controller for that, and I can just watch. Don’t worry! The story is amazing, I’d love just watching it again.”

Dick ran his thumb over the crisp white, blue, and orange shapes on the games packaging. This game didn’t look like any of the ones Jason would play when he so rarely stopped by for the night. Those games often came with burley men, all washed in gray, wielding guns. Dick was good at those games, but he only ever got the chance to play once.

That particular game dealt in war. He had to defeat the enemy quickly and efficiently, either through stealth or attacking head on. All the buttons and their combined controls were easy to learn, and Dick beat the fame in a few hours; he never died once. Dick didn’t remember playing at all. His mind went into the place it went when he had been trained and didn’t come out until the end credits rolled. By then the entire family— Bruce, Damian, Alfred, and Jason— all stood around him with various levels of seriousness, concern, and fear on their faces. That fugue state had put an end to Dick playing war games. It had been his decision as much as Bruce’s, but Wally told his that the guns on the cover didn’t shoot bullets, but portals, doorways to help solve puzzles that comes with no time limit. The ultimate goal being his characters escape.

They started with the story mode, and Dick found the game hysterical in the most taboo sense. He imaged Cobb as Whetley: the once trustworthy guide turned villainous, and also happened to have been a complete moron. Cobb under no circumstances was an idiot, but when he ignored Cobb’s serious character and put his face over Wheatley’s glowing eyes a dangerous glee built in his stomach. He though maybe, just maybe, if he closed his eyes he could imagine Cobb acting in such idiotic ways.

Wally, he was on a different level. Once Dick’s illusion began to take shape he couldn’t believe how hilarious he found Wally’s running commentary. He knew that Wally couldn’t know the true reason that Dick gave repressed chuckles for his many jokes, but to Dick it felt as though they were making fun of a monster together. Wally’s consistent talking no longer drained Dick. He found himself hanging on every word.

“You’re good at this.” Wally said in one of those questions hidden as a statement that Dick still had trouble perceiving.

“I like puzzles.” Dick’s answer only scratched the surface, but he didn’t feel like ruining the easy atmosphere with the weight of his history. The answer worked well enough, and it wasn’t a lie. Dick liked the strategy and complexity.

“Awesome, maybe next time we could play the co-op. Unless, of course, you’d rather do something else.”

“No.” Dick said without any explanation.

If his bluntness struck Wally as odd, he didn’t say anything about it. “Alright, I’ll make sure to bring it with me next time I come over. Maybe next week?”

Dick shrugged, and he grinned knowing what would soon happen. “I’ll have to ask Bruce.”

“As me what?” Bruce asked from behind them. Dick could imagine a small smile playing on his lips because he too anticipated Wally’s reaction upon his sudden arrival.

“Jesus!” Wally shouted and banged his ankle against the coffee table. Quickly, after the realization of who he had shouted at, Wally stiffened. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t hear you, um, sir.”

Bruce raised one eyebrow before he turned to Dick. “Your question?”

“Can Wally come over next week?”

“I don’t see why not.” He looked at Wally as if he were inspecting him. Dick recognized this as typical Batman humor: watching other heroes squirm as he stayed an impassive wall. “Have your uncle contact me and we’ll find a day that worked with everybody’s schedules.” He turned back to Dick. “Do you need anything?”

Dick shook his head, and Bruce ruffled his hair, gave Wally one last serious look, and left for patrol.

“How,” Wally stuttered out, “is he more terrifying when he isn’t in an all-black bat suit?”

“He isn’t that scary.” Dick smirked. “It’s Nightwing you have to watch out for.”

Wally put a hand over his heart. “As your new bro, one you know has to work with Nightwing almost daily, I am hurt by your betrayal. It stings, Dick. It really does.”

“Not as much as an escrima stick does.”

­­­­­­­­­­­­­Below the Streets of Gotham, and her yellow, flickering street lights, there was a maze. The maze had a start but contained no end. There was no rumor that an exit existed, always outside the reach of those too weak to reach freedom from a damp and dark hell. No such rumor existed because the one person to escape the maze’s owners had to breakout by breaking a hole in one of the walls and make their own exit. He had been left to go mad in the Labyrinth to create a more pliable soldier. Where he went outside of his time in those twisting paths? He had no idea, but he recognized the same musty air. When he broke out, the air had been so clean that he nearly choked on it.

Every inch of that maze had been searched meticulously for any clue that could point towards the direction of those responsible for putting that person, a boy, in the endless maze without food or water.

The search itself felt useless at the best of times. Expensive technology specializing in evidence collection couldn’t pick out anything more than specks of dried blood that had been so genetically altered that discovering the origin proved not only fruitless, but impossible. Still, twice a week, the boy’s guardian submitted himself to that evil maze only to come back with nothing but a strident anger. Those were the nights that every criminal that crossed him felt the need to pray. He almost gave into the misery of the maze and thought to look for answers in other places.

Almost. Until the day he brought a signet ring with him, one that fit an odd crevasse just outside the maze that he had noticed a year ago, but couldn’t determine what, if anything, went in it. The ring slid in perfectly, and once smooth stone slid away to reveal a gnarled staircase. At the bottom, he found empty cryostasis tubes labeled with different names, such as: BOONE, O’MALLEY, LOONG, COBB, JONAS, and GRAY SON. There were blood stained training rooms, empty file cabinets, large conference areas, and a large room with high ceilings. Hundreds could sit in that room, and a center stage came complete with a podium and a steel cage with chains on the floor. There was no mistaking what he had found behind the wall that secretly held a door. He found the Court of Owls main meeting grounds, the exit to the maze.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well here is chapter 16 with some fun cameos. Also, I'm 20 now which is wild.

“Are you sure that your family is okay with this?” Wally asked while Robin punched the access code for Mount Justice in the Batcave’s zeta tube.

Dick nodded, thought about it, and then shook his hand in a “so-so” fashion. His family wasn’t totally against the idea because he had never asked them, so far as he knew they were ecstatic about the idea. Besides, he’s in the zeta tube system for a reason (that reason may be in case he ever needs the safety of the Watch Tower, but he chose not to focus on that). Things have gone well with Wally. After a handful of hangouts, Dick felt it was time to push himself and meet Wally’s team. Bruce wanted him to make more friends in the hero community. The team was the perfect place to start with that.

Still, they would only have a limited amount of time before either Damian or Bruce came to collect him. The zeta logs passed through intense encryption software, off a secured Wayne Tech Satellite, and got decrypted at the Watch Tower where whomever was on monitor duty would overview any flagged entries. Once his title appeared on the monitor, and the hero on duty read it, they would send a message to the Bat Computer, Batmobile, and the cell phones of Bruce, Damian, and Alfred. The process normally takes a minute from zeta entry to Bruce’s phone. However, Hal was on monitor duty that night, so Dick estimated a good five minutes before anyone got alerted to his whereabouts.

They entered the Batcave’s zeta and exit in Mount Justice. He started the five minute timer on his watch.

“What’s that for?” Wally asked, though he had become well versed in his new friend’s occasional oddness.

“You’ll see. Where are they?” Dick didn’t expect a warm welcome filled with banners and confetti, but he also didn’t know what to expect outside of that.

“Probably in the common area.” He began to lead Dick down the stone halls. “You’re going to love everyone. Conner’s a bit rough around the edges, king of quiet, so you two should get along fine. Oh, and Artemis too. Yeah, she’s going to love you. M’Gann’s crazy nice, and not a half bad baker. Then there’s Aqualad, he’s awesome, and Batgirl, who you already know. Most of the OG’s don’t hang around the Mountain that much these days. They’re all full fledged heroes and stuff.” Someone caught Wally’s eye. “Hey, Kal, I got someone you should meet.”

Kal— Aqualad, Dick guessed if the gills were any indication— carried himself not unlike Aquaman. There’s a comfortable regality to him. If he were thrown from seeing the famous Robin wondering the mountain halls, he hid it well.

“Robin, I didn’t know you were coming by today.”

“Batman gave him the go ahead to meet the team. You see, I knew deep down the Bat liked us.”

Aqualad looked skeptical, but he didn’t get the chance to challenge them because Artemis walked in with who Dick could only guess was Superboy. Also, with them was a familiar face that looked shocked to him at all.

“Robin?” Barbara, dressed as Batgirl, asked. “What are you doing here?”

“Wait a minute.” Aretmis looked him up and down. “That’s Robin? I thought he’d be older for some reason.”

“I thought Robin worked with the Teen Titans now.” Conner looked thoroughly confused.

“That’s his brother: Bluejay.” Batgirl explained. “He used to be Robin, but he passed the title. What are you doing here, Robin? Does Batman know what you’re doing?”

“Yeah, totally.” Wally said.

Just as Dick said, “More or less.”

Silence hung in the room before Artemis bent over laughing. “Oh god, Wally kidnapped Robin. Batman’s going to kill you.”

“What?” Wally stammered, looking at Dick or anyone for reassurance. “No, he won’t.”

Conner patted Wally on the shoulder. “Yes, he will.”

Wally looked to Dick for help. “You said he was okay with you coming here.”

“He wasn’t not okay.” Dick clarified. “I never asked him.”

Wally sat on the ground in one of his melodramatic displays that Dick came to love. “I can’t believe it. I’m too young to die. There’s so much I wanted to do.”

“He doesn’t kill.” Dick reminded his grieving friend. “but he does break bones, so I’d watch out for that.”

Wally looked up at him dismayed. “You have a really messed up sense of humor, you know?”

“He’ll fit in well.” Artemis pats Wally on the back. “Sorry, but he’s one of us now.”

Dick tried to keep the joy inside him contained. One of them? He’s never been part of a friend group before. Dick doesn’t know if he’s had more than two friends his own age in his life. Maybe this is what he had been missing those past two years, and all he needed to get back to normal was a group.

He watched on content as Wally prepared his retort, but something behind Dick’s shoulder caught his eye. Dick turned; a girl with green skin and red hair came flying around the corner with a large smile on her face.

“Shit,” Wally whispered. “M’Gann, wait—"

But Wally spoke too late, and a voice both warm and bubbling burrowed into Dick’s mind.

_Hey guys!_

Two words. Not even monotone or hurt words, but kind ones that meant him no harm entered Dick’s mind. He shut down immediately. Not again, he refused to have anyone in his head again.

Someone touched his shoulder— instinct took over— someone cried out in pain.

Strong arms— like Uncle Clark’s— grabbed his and held him tight— couldn’t move— couldn’t break free.

The presence— back in his mind—trying to calm him— _GET OUT_ — all he could do was scream— out loud and inside— _get out_ — _get out_ — _GET OUT_.

Someone spoke—many someone’s spoke— too many— Talon kicked at the one holding him— like kicking steel.

A new voice— kind voice— told him to stop— he’s going to hurt himself.

He doesn’t want to stop— wanted to run—needed to get back to home— nothing hurts at home.

“Talon stop!”

Dick’s body stopped moving. The frantic storm in his mind halted to a standstill. He could focus only on the speak, the one to give him the order: Nightwing.

The hero— his hero— gave him the order. Damian did that, and he looked so worried, and scared, and angry, and just heartbroken that he had to use that tone and cadence at all. That he had to call Dick a Talon.

Dick made him do that. He lost control.

The arms around him were loose enough now that he could break away, and he ran. He rand away from those that called after him, from Wally, to whom he had apparently given a limp, and from the brother he had hurt because he couldn’t control the monster he knew he was. He ran to the zeta tube, and he broke the one in Gotham that he exited.

He ditched his Robin suit and stole new clothes, and then kept running. He ran for hours, back and forth,up and down the streets of Gotham. He ran until he couldn’t anymore. Until he could be sure no one knew where he was, and where no one would get hurt by him again.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there are any My Hero Academia tododeku fans out there the first chapter of my tododeku fic Appearances is out

There are three reactions someone can have when they witness a kid run into a closed zoo. One, you help them. Two, you hurt them. Three, you ignore them.

Only criminals ever choose the second option. There are criminals of every type in Gotham, and children go missing, or they get held hostage every day. The third option was the one most Gotham citizen’s chose. It’s depressing, but when a person sees crime every morning when they walk to work and every night when they go home they don’t chase ater every scared child they see. The first option was the rarest, and Tim always found himself unable to resist helping a scared child. He tried not to think what that said about his character.

He stopped before entering the zoo; he looked at his reflection in the gift shop window. The angry red angles on his helmet and the burnt bullet holes in his body armor stared back at him. He looked scary. Normally, he wouldn’t care. Normally, it wasn’t a problem when people were terrified for what he would do to them upon sight, but he could only imagine what a child’s reaction would be when they saw what looked like a militaristic boogeyman.

Tim broke the giftshop window and exchanged his hood and bullet-ridden vest for a cap that cast dark shadows over his eyes and a baggy blue t-shirt that had the slogan _Always be yourself, unless you can be a penguin. Then be a penguin._ The shirt in itself was ridiculous, but maybe it would make the kid laugh.

The child sat in front of the elephant enclosure on a bench with something in his hands. Tim tried to see his face, but the hood he wore wouldn’t even let Tim see his hair color. He took a step forward.

“How did you find me?”

No way. Trust that Tim’s luck would have led him here. He had hoped for a quick and easy night, but only an hour after he stared, and he found himself stuck in Bat drama for the third time in less than a month. Not only that, but Dick had a knife in his hand; he used the reflection on blade to keep a watchful on Tim.

This was going to take some tact.

“I followed a kid that looked like he needed help, turned out to be you. If it’s okay with you, I’d still like to help.”

“You don’t need to,” Dick flipped the knife around in his hand.

“No one needs to do anything, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t, Alfred told me that once. May I?” He pointed to the spot next to Dick, and he sat when Dick didn’t throw at knife at him. “I used to love coming here with my mother. She would take me to see the lions, put me on her shoulder so I could see. For a while, I loved coming with here, seeing the lions with her.”

“What changed?”

“I saw how sad the lions looked. All of them trapped in their enclosures, and after that I couldn’t come back here. It wasn’t the same.”

Dick nodded and looked to the two elephants in the enclosure. “The circus had elephants. It wasn’t east, but Pop Haly tried to find spaces for them to roam. Sometimes at night, I can still see them wandering around the fields of Poland.”

“Must have been a sight,” Tim closed his eyes and tried to picture two giant creatures surrounded by green grass and red flowers. “What happened to them?”

Dick shrugged. “The circus got poor, people stopped caring, or maybe both. All I know is that at one point they were there and at another they left the circus.” He pointed to the elephant on the right, “Zitka.” He pointed to the one on the left, “Elenore. The zoo must have bought them from the circus at some point.”

Tim stood and grabbed the metal fence between him and the elephants. There were the elephants that he begged his parents to bring him to see in Europe, and the ones that he got to touch when his parents had finally took him. They looked miserable as those lions had when he was a boy.

“We should let them out.”

“Why?” Dick still flipped the knife in his hand.

“Why?” Tim turned to Dick, watched his thumb glide over the blade. “I thought you would be itching at the chance to save these two.”

“Maybe I would have once, and maybe I still want to let them out.” Dick said. “I don’t know about that, but I do know that if we let them out they’ll be killed.”

Tim should have thought about that, should have thought about a lot of things that he hadn’t. He looked back to the elephants who had their trunks intertwined. “At least they have each other.”

Dick’s hand tightened around the knife’s hilt, and he looked down and away. “I messed up. I hurt my friends; I hurt Damian.”

Fuck, Dick and Damian were always the closest out of them all. He’d been jealous of that for a long time, just like he’d been jealous of Damian’s skills. Deep down, he may still have had some resentment or envy directed at Damian, the boy who had it all. It wasn’t like Tim hadn’t had a relationship with Dick, quite the contrary. Tim once tutored Dick in math and science; they performed science experiments in the kitchen. Laughter echoes in his mind from when Alfred had Dick held in one arm while he chased Tim through the halls for getting their volcano project the kitchen celling.

That had been a good day. Tim had forgotten so many of the simple, happy days, and Dick has too. Had Dick remembered there would have been reason for him to think Damian would remain at Dick for longer than a millisecond.

“I don’t know what you did, or think you have done, but I know Damian won’t hold it against you.”

“Maybe he should.”

Tim shrugged. “You could be right, but I think it’s been a long time since Damian cared about what people think he should do. I’m also certain that he’s probably been searching the city for hours trying to find you.”

The knife is pocketed they looked to the elephants—the last ties to a life long gone— for a while.

* * *

 

Damian, dressed in civilian clothes, pulled up in one of Bruce’s Aston Martins, not bothering to even close the car door behind him­— a dangerous game to play with a luxury sports car in Gotham. However, Damian didn’t care about the car. All his attention locked onto Dick who was sat on a bench next to the gift shop. Tim could barely intercept Damian on his path to Dick.

“Cool it, he’s been through a lot today.” Tim put a hand on Damian’s shoulder, but he got brushed off immediately. Yeah, he should have expected that.

“Did you hurt him?”

“What?” Tim took a step back. “I wouldn’t hurt him. Not ever, and you know that.”

“Do I?” Damian asked and took two steps forward until he was in Tim’s face. “Don’t forget, Drake, we both took the same oath, but only one of us kept it.”

The gun pressed against his back felt particularly cold. “Yeah, I guess we did.” Tim stepped aside. “Maybe you’re better than me after all.”

Damian didn’t say anything, but rather walked straight past him to their younger brother. How odd, Tim thought. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who changed since all this started four years ago. There was a time not to long ago when Damian would have made a smug comment about Tim’s skill after a statement like that, it would have been instinctual. Now, Damian walked straight over to Dick without a second thought.

“Are you okay?” Damian kneeled down and checked Dick over for injuries.

“I’m okay,” Dick didn’t look at him. “Damian, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have had to do that.”

Moving slow, Damian put a hand on Dick’s shoulder. “You didn’t do anything wrong, everything that happened wasn’t in your control.”

Hope, or something with a similar flavor, filled Dick’s eyes. “You’re not angry?”

“No,” Damian said simply. “I told you this a long time ago, but I’ll never get angry at you Dick.”

For a moment, Tim didn’t know what Dick would do when he looked up at Damian. He didn’t even think that the kid had any idea what he would do until his body put itself into motion and crashed into Damian’s chest for a hug. Tim had been surprised, and he thought Damian would be as well, but Damian returned the hug without thought. His older brother’s callous rough hand drifted through Dick’s black hair, and Dick’s hands clutched Damian’s button-up. A pull in Tim made him want to go and join them, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t naïve; he knew that wasn’t his life anymore. Still, as he left he couldn’t help but imagine how such a peaceful moment would feel.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder that I posted the first chapter of what will be a stupid long Tododeku fic!

Dick stuck to Damian’s side after the events at the Mountain. Day in, day out, if anyone needed to know where Dick was all they had to do was find Damian. The clinginess towards Damian in itself hadn’t felt odd—Dick has always clung to his eldest brother’s side— but the duration felt abnormal to everyone in the Manor. Dick refused to go on patrols without Damian. He trailed behind him wherever Damian went around the Manor, and Damian’s trips to the Mountain that week were all cancelled because Dick wouldn’t let him out of his sight for longer than five minutes. For a while, they thought Dick parted with his brother over night, but that changed when Damian discovered Dick slept under his bed or in the air vents in his room.

Damian started to get worried around day six. He had expected the opposite of this behavior—pulling away, hiding, avoidance— but Dick couldn’t handle separation. Bruce worried that it could have been a side-effect from Damian giving Dick an order— that he felt the need to linger around for the next one. Damian couldn’t buy into that theory, for Dick didn’t seem to care much about what Damian said just that he remained close by. Every opportunity Damian left for Dick to explain why he kept so close to him was left unfulfilled. When he asked Alfred, all the answer he got was to give Dick time, and that his brother most likely felt safest around Damian.

“Take it as a compliment, master Damian.” Alfred had said. “He’s had a rather difficult month, and he’s looking to you for security.”

Damian tried to view the situation the way Alfred put it, but he found it hard not to worry with his younger brother unable to part with him without falling into a panic. All he could do was hope that the birthday dinner tonight would help, or, at least, it wouldn’t hurt much more. The party had been scaled back in size. Now, only the family, Barbara and her father were slated to come, and Bruce was still wanted to reduce the guest list. He did until Alfred reasoned with him that Dick would handle seven people. Besides, it was Dick’s birthday, and they should surround him with those that love him.

Blueberry pancakes began the day, and Dick already seemed to feel better than he had the entire week—Damian’s certain everyone’s shoulder dropped in relief when Dick whispered ‘good morning’ to them, those being his first words in a week. Cass arrived a few hours later and managed to pull Dick away from Damian’s side for half-an-hour while she taught him a new dance routine she had worked on the entire week.

Things got awkward when Barbara arrived, and Dick obviously still felt embarrassed about their previous encounter. After Bruce and the Commissioner snuck away to Bruce’s study for drinks, Dick whispered his apology to Barbara.

“Sorry that you had to see that.” His hands were clasped before him and he couldn’t meet her eyes.

“Don’t worry about it, you can’t scare me off that easy. I’m the one who should apologize.”

Dick looked up at her, and he cocked his head to the side. “Why?”

“Because I’m not going to leave you alone for a long time.” She smiled, so kin. “Face it, Boy Wonder, you’re stuck with me.”

If the two words Dick said that morning came as a shock, then the hug he gave Barbara, while short-lived, sent them all into cardiac arrest.

Such a small, momentary act was the first time in six days when Dick had both initiated touch and contacted someone who wasn’t Damian since the Mountain.

“It’s good to see you too, Dick.” She tried to look cool, unaffected, so he wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

Damian’s little brother may look bashful, like he tried to ignore the situation, but Damian knew that he had not been subtle with his relief. On a normal day, after a regular week, he would have contained himself better. But Damian felt like he could breathe again. That relief, however, died away when he heard Jason snicker beside him.

“See yourself in a mirror, Todd?”

“Ouch,” Jason put out a hand over his heart. “Words hurt, Wayne.”

“Play nice,” Cass reminded them, but Damian saw her smile and hold in her own laughter.

Jason held out his hands in surrender. “All I’m saying is that I remember a time when not even a morphine drip could make him look so replaced.”

“I hate morphine.”

“That’s not my point, and you know it.” Jason turned back to look at Barbara who showed Dick a birthday card. “I’m not saying it’s a bad look, kind of the opposite actually.”

Maybe he was right, Damian knew that he had acted like such a different person when he had just turned twenty-one, felt he had the world figured out and his own leadership position at the Mountain. Bruce, Alfred, Jason all of them said he changed when Dick came into the picture, but he hadn’t changed one bit, not in his core. Dick’s arrival softened him, but in his essence, Damian had still felt that everything in the world could be controlled by him. Real change came when the Talon’s kidnapped Dick. When he couldn’t protect a nine-year-old child in the room down the hall, and when he could only stand by and support Dick’s recovery. Moments like those, when Dick hugged a friend, mattered. They reminded Damian that Dick did get a little better every day.

Dick pulled on Damian’s sleeve and took him out from his thoughts. He held an open card out to Damian, one with the names of each Young Justice member along with an apology from M’Gann and hopes to see him again soon. He would have to thank them the next time he went to the Mountain. Dick needed to know that he wasn’t hated by Wally and his teammates.

“Very nice,” Damian said. “If you want, I’ll help you write back to them tonight.”

Dick beamed and ran back over to Barbara. He grabbed her hand and led her over towards the sitting room but stopped in the door way and looked to Damian.

“Go on, I’m not going anywhere.”

Dick took a breath, nodded, and left with Barbara.

“Soft,” Cass nudged his shoulder before she slunk off to wherever Cass went when she snuck away.

He heard Jason laugh again and gave him a shove towards the kitchen. “Make yourself useful and help Pennyworth with dinner.”

“I’m going, but not because you told me to, because I want to see find out how many cookies I can steal before Alfred catches me.”

“You won’t get one,” Damian called after Jason.

“I’m feeling lucky!”

Damian smirked, at least Jason didn’t look to have his focus on his last argument with Bruce at the fairgrounds. Good, he thought. He didn’t want to deal with their relationship today.

There was a knock at the door. Odd, everyone incited had already arrived. Unless Drake decided that after the night at the zoo he could walk back into the Manor as though nothing had happened. Damian hoped not; he didn’t even tell Bruce that Red Hood found Dick and contacted that night.

He opened the door, ready to tell Tim, or whoever, to get the hell of the property, but he saw no one. However, on the front stoop sat a blue box tied with blue ribbon. Caution throw to the wind in favor of curiosity, Damian took the lid off.

“Shit,” he whispered, and he ran down to the driveway and looked frantically for any sign of the person who left the present. He saw no one, no sign that anyone had been around. Damian went back to the house and looked down to the box’s contents. He looked to the dead robin with a Talon’s knife in its heart.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, techincally I had this written last week, and I planned on uploading it on Thanksgiving, but I found a mouse in my grandma's house and ended up helping her stay out of the house all day until stores opened for Black Friday so we could go and buy mouse traps. It was a whole thing was incredibly ridiculous and by the time it was over I ended up playing Spiderman PS4 with my friend and forgot to upload.  
> essentially, life got crazy, so I decided to weight until this week to publish. 
> 
> ALSO, i'm wondering if I made a curiouscat if anyone would use it,so let me know!

The dead robin sat in its box on the between Damian and his father. Damian had looked ten-levels of pissed when he came into his father’s study announced with the box in hand and told the Commissioner to leave. His father had apologized for Damian’s rudeness, but now he understood his son’s reasoning for acting like an intemperate child again. They had sat through Dick’s birthday dinner ready for any sign of attack, but none came. Only after everyone left, and Dick had gone to sleep in his own bed for the first time in a week, did they discuss the Robin

“We need to move Richard,” Damian moved with pent up energy. He wanted to go out and find Cobb, wanted to beat the last breaths of life from him, but they had no idea where Cobb or the Court were. They were open targets for a sniper sitting in his nest, and Damian couldn’t stand that Dick was the one with a bullseye painted on his back.

Bruce didn’t have the same pent up energy. All he did was stare at the dead bird like it would break his glare just as any low-level enforcer. “Nowhere we bring him will be safe, at least we know the terrain better here.”

“Cobb seemed to know the grounds the last three times he snuck in. We can’t protect him here, there’s too much area to guard it all.”

“Do you think moving him into the city will be any better?” Bruce admired his son’s dedication to Dick, but Damian’s impossible to reason with when he got so protective. “Think about Dick, he’s fine when he’s Robin, but you know how much he hates the city.”

The city always had been too loud and unorganized for Dick. He had grown up with a set schedule his entire life in the circus, and the Court had planned every breath he took. That and most of his life had been spent away from large groups of people—outside performance— so Dick didn’t cope well with city life. When he did go to stay in the Penthouse during events in the Manor, Dick stayed within the Penthouses walls. Nightlife he could handle, there weren’t any large crowds to deal with while patrolling. Bruce didn’t know how Dick would handle living in the city fulltime.

“Then bring him to the Watchtower.” Damian pinched his brow. “The Court’s reach goes far, but not even they have the resources to breach a base outside the planet’s atmosphere.”

“You’re sure about that?” Bruce thought he was joking, but he could never be sure with the Court.

Damian didn’t register the joke, but he began pacing. “Why now? They’ve known where Richard is probably since the day that he left, so why wait two years before leaving some tacky threat?”

“I discovered the Court’s base in the Labyrinth a few weeks ago. This message may be directed towards me, so I stop investigating.”

Damian stopped all his frustrated movement, for his anger found direction towards Bruce. “You found what?”

“I—”

He held up a hand and cut Bruce off. “I heard what you said, but clearly you didn’t hear me when I told you any more secrets about things pertaining to Richard’s safety I would take him away.”

“This had nothing to do with Dick’s safety.”

“Then I must be the only one who can see the dead bird on your desk.”

“There wasn’t any actable evidence in any of the rooms that I’ve collected samples from, and if there was you would have been the first person that I told.” Bruce used all his endurance training to keep himself from running a hand through his hair or showing his son how drained he really felt. “I didn’t keep secrets to try and protect Dick. I kept them because I had nothing to deliver except dusty old rooms and cobwebs.”

Damian didn’t look pleased, but he rarely did, so Bruce took it as a win.

“If we aren’t going to remove Richard from the ground, then we need to stop letting our guard down. Cobb has shown that he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get his hands on Richard, and I won’t have that.”

“Obvio—”

“You also need to show me everything that you’ve found in the Labyrinth and each hidden room that you’ve discovered in the sewers.” Damian booted up the computer for his father. “You’re also going to set up notifications that go directly to my server for whenever you run a test, create a new theory, or even open the files.”

Bruce didn’t like the idea that his own son wanted to set up checks and balances to keep him in line, but he also knew that Damian wouldn’t leave the room until Bruce set them up. All it took was a couple of keystrokes to set-up— all done with Damian not so subtly watching over his shoulder— and his son looked far more pleased.

“I’m almost surprised you weren’t already spying on this file.” Bruce said, and his son laughed and went to go leave the room, but Bruce pulled him back with a hand clenched in his shirt sleeve. “Not a word to Dick, or, at least, not until I can figure out a way to tell him that won’t lead to a bad reaction.”

“It’s the Court, father.” Damian pulled his arm from Bruce’s grasp. “There will always be a bad reaction.”

“That seems to run in the family.” Bruce wished that it didn’t. No matter what any of his children, the League, or even the Commissioner told him, Bruce longed for a day when he did not have to wear that cowl. This entire crusade began with the hope that one day he would no longer have to make himself Gotham’s boogeyman. Everyday that hope seemed a little further away, but everyday he saw Damian try and conceal an amused smile, Alfred recite Shakespeare to himself in the kitchen, and Dick become a little more open with himself. Small moments reminded him who he fought for, and why he started his mission. Still, days like today, the days when Damian couldn’t look at him without plain disappointment, made him wonder if any of what he did really mattered. When was the last time Damian said him anything to him other than reminders of his mistakes?

“How is Jon?”

Damian, who was already half-way to the door, stopped dead in his tracks. “Kent?

A smirk came upon Bruce’s face to see his normally composed son stutter at the mention of Jonathan Kent. “Yes, Jon Kent. You two are still friends, right?”

“Yes,” Damian’s phone buzzed, and he fumbled for his phone in back pocket. “Kent is doing well. He’s currently with Superman out in— shit.” Damian handed Bruce his phone with the most concerned expression Bruce had ever seen on his son.

He took the phone and his stomach dropped at the simple message.

* * *

 

**UNKNOWN NUMBER**

It’s Tim. Dick followed me on patrol. There was fear toxin, and he needs help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have gotten so far behind with responding to my comments, but I still read them, and thank you to all you kind people who take the time! It's keeps my motivation up!

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me at dontfeedthebabytigers.tumblr.com 
> 
> this fic's spotify playlist https://open.spotify.com/user/12bi2vdo1y7khazxolv5m4en0/playlist/4xqLllv0cdJm4KNjmbka6v?si=uZnm0VqJTnO-VaBKOjn1Qg


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